He Who Whispers

got yourself arrested now?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“She'll get out at Camden Town. So will we. Sit down here.”

In their ears was a soft, streaming thunder as the train rocketed through the tunnel. The car swayed and creaked round a curve; lights behind opaque glass jolted on the upholstery of the seats. Miles, all his nerves twitching with doubt, and down beside Barbara on a double-seat facing forward.

“I don't like to ask too many questions,” continued Barbara, “but I've been half mad with curiosity ever since I talked to you on the 'phone. What is all the urgency about overtaking Fay Seton?

The train ground to a stop, and the sliding doors rolled open.

“Charing Cross!” yelled the guard conscientiously. “Edgware train!”

Miles sprang to his feet.

“Really it's all right,” Barbara pleaded. “If Dr. Fell says she's going to that place of hers, she's bound to get out at Camden Town. What can happen in the meantime?”

“I don't know,” admitted Miles. “Look here,” he added, sitting down again and taking her hand in both of his. “I've known you only a very short time; but do you mind my saying I'd rather talk to you now than almost anyone else I can think of?”

“No,” answered Barbara, looking away from him, “I don't mind.”

“I can't say how you've been spending the weekend,” pursued Miles, “but we've been having nothing but a Grand Guignol of vampires and near-murders, and . . .”

“What did you say?” She drew back her hand quickly.

“yes! And Dr. Fell claims you may be able to supply one of the most important pieces of information, whatever that is.” He paused. “Who is Jim Morell?”

Clank-thud went the rush of the train, hollow-streaming thorough its tunnel; a breeze touched their hair from the ventilator-windows.

“You can't connect him with this,” said Barbara, and her fingers tightened round her handbag. “He doesn't know, he never did know, anything about the death of Mr. Brooke! He . . .”

“Yes! But do you mind telling me who he is?”

“He's my brother.” Barbara moistened her very smooth, pink lips; not as attractive, not as heady, as those of the passive blue-eyed woman now in the first car of the train. Miles shook this thought out of his mind as Barbara asked quickly: “Where did you hear about him?”

“From Fay Seton.”

“Oh?” She stared a little.

“I'll tell you the whole story in just a minute. But there are certain things to straighten out first. Your brother . . . where is he now?”

“He's in Canada. For three years he was a prisoner of war in Germany, and we thought he was dead. He's been sent out to Canada for his health. Jim's older than I am; he was quite a well-known painter, before the war.”

“And I understand he was a friend of Harry Brooke.”

“Yes.” Then Barbara spoke, softly but very clearly. “He was a friend of that utterly unspeakable swine Harry Brooke.”

“Strand!” shouted out the guard. “Edgware train!”

Subconsciously Miles was listening hard for that voice; listening for every slowing-down of the rumbling wheels, every sigh and jolt as the doors rolled open. The one thing he mustn't miss, on his soul's life, were those words, “Camden Town.”“There's just on thing,” continued Miles, with discomfort stirring through him but with a fierce determination to face it. “I'd better mention before I tell you what happened. And that's this:

“I believe in Fay Seton. I've got into trouble with practically everyone for saying that: with my sister Marion, with Steve Curtis, with Professor Rigaud, even perhaps with Dr. Fell, though I'm not quite so sure where he stands. And, since you were the first person who warned me against her . . .”

“I warned you against her?”

“Yes. Didn't you?”

“Oh!” breathed Barbara Morell.

She had drawn back a little from him, with the dark cylinder-curved walls flying past outside the windows. She breathed that monosyllable in a tone of utter stupefaction, as though she could not believe her ears.

Miles had an instinct that the whole situation was going to change again: that something was not only wrong, but deadly wrong. Barbara stared at him, her mouth open. He saw comprehension come into the grey eyes, slow incredulous comprehension as they searched his face; then half-laughter, a wild helpless gesture . . .

“You thought,” she insisted, “that I--?”

“Yes! Didn't you?”

“Listen,” Barbara put her hand on his arm, and spoke with clear-eyed sincerity. “I wasn't trying to warn you against her. I wasn't wondering if you could help her. Fay Seton is . . .”

“Go on!”

“Fay Seton is one of the most completely wronged, bedevilled, and—and hurt persons I've ever heard of. All I was trying to find out was whether she might have committed the murder, because I didn't know any details about the murder. She'd have been justified, you know, if she had killed someone! But you could tell, from what Professor Rigaud said, she hadn't done that, either. And I was at my wits' end.”

Barbara made a short, slight gesture.

“If you remember, at Beltring's, I wasn't even so much as interested in anything except the murder. The things that went before it, the charges of immorality and—and the other ridiculous thing that almost got her stoned by the country people, didn't matter. Because they were a deliberate, cruel frame-up against her from start to finish.”

Barbara's voice rose.

“I knew that. I can prove it. I've got a whole packet of letters to prove it. That woman's been in hell from lying gossip that prejudiced her in the eyes of the police, and may have ruined her life. I could have helped her. I can help her. But I'm too much of a coward! I'm too much of a coward! I'm too much of a coward!”

Chapter XV

“Leicester Square!” sang the guard.

One or two persons got in. But the long, hot Underground car was still almost empty. The Australian soldier snored. A button tinkled, in communication with the driver far away at the front; the doors rolled shut. It was still a good distance to Camden Town.

Miles didn't notice. He was again in the upstairs room at Beltring's Restaurant, watching Barbara Morell as she faced Professor Rigaud across the dinner-table: watching the expression of her eyes, hearing that curious exclamation under her breath—incredulity or contempt—dismissing as of no importance the statement that Howard Brooke had cursed Fay Seton aloud in the Credit Lyonnais Bank.

Miles was fitting every word, every gesture, into a pattern that hitherto had baffled him.

“Professor Rigaud,” continued Barbara, “is very observant at seeing and describing the outside of things. But he never once realizes, he really doesn't, what's inside. I could have wept when he said jokingly that he was a blind bar and owl. Because in a sense that's perfectly true.

“For a whole summer Professor Rigaud stood at Harry Brooke's shoulder. He preached at Harry; he moulded him, he influenced him. Yet he never guessed the truth. Harry, for all his athletic skill and his good looks—and,” said Barbara with contempt, “they must have been rather pretty-boy good looks—was simply a cold-hearted fish determined to get his own way.”

(Cold-hearted. Cold-hearted. Where had Miles heard that same term before?)

Barbara bit her lip.

“You remember,” she said, “that Harry's heart was set on becoming a painter?”

“Yes. I remember.”