He Who Whispers

“Then in that case,” cried Barbara, and swallowed before she went on, “you know what frightened her?”

“Yes, mademoiselle. We have heard what frightened her?”

And Professor Rigaud's face slowly grew pale, paler than it had been when he talked of vampires.

“My friend,” he pounced out at Miles, as though he guessed the direction of the latter's thoughts, “I gave you theories about a certain supernatural agency. Well! It would appear that in this case I was misled by facts intended to mislead. But I do not put myself in ashes and sackcloth for that. No! For I would say to you that one case of an agency proved spurious no more disproves the existence of such supernatural agencies than a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England. Do you concede this?”

“Yes, I concede it. But . . .”

“No!” reiterated Professor Rigaud, wagging his head portentously and rapping the ferrule of the cane against the floor. “I do not put myself in ashes and sackcloth for that. I put myself in ashes and sackcloth because—in fine, because this is worse.”

He held up the sword-cane.

“May I make to you, my friend, a small present? May I give you this treasured relic.? Don not, now, find as much satisfaction in it as others find in the headstone of Dougal or a pen-wiper made of human flesh. I am human. My gorge can rise. May I give it to you?”

“No, I don't want the infernal thing! Put it away! What we're trying to ask you . . .”

“Justement!” said Professor Rigaud, and flung the sword-cane on the bed.

“Marion is all right?” miles insisted. “There can't be any relapse of any kind?”

“There cannot.”

“Then this thing that frightened her.” Miles braced himself. “What did she see?”

“She saw,” replied the other concisely, “nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Exactly.”

“Yet she was frightened as much as that without being harmed in any way?”

“Exactly,” assented Professor Rigaud, and made angry little frightened noises in his throat. “She was frightened by something she heard and something she felt. Notably by the whispering.”

“The whispering . . .

If Miles Hammond had hoped to get away from the realm of monsters and nightmares, he found that he had not been permitted to over very far. He glanced at Barbara, who only shook her head helplessly. Professor Rigaud was still making the little seething noises in his throat, like a kettle boiling; but the noises were not funny. His eyes had a strangled, congested look.

“This thing,” he cried, “is a thing that could be managed by you or me or Jacques Bonhomme. Its simplicity horrifies me. And yet--”

He broke off.

Outside in Bolsover Place, with a squeal of brakes and a bumping on the uneven paving-stones, a motor-car pulled up. Professor Rigaud stumped over to one window. He flung up his arms.

“Dr. Fell,” he added, turning round from the window again, “arrives back from the hospital sooner than I expected him. I must go.”

“Go? Why must you go? Professor Rigaud!”

The good professor was not permitted to go very far. For the bulk of Dr. Gideon Fell, hatless but in his box- pleated cape, impelled mightily on the crutch-handled stick, had the effect of filling up the stairs, filling up the passage, and finally filling up the doorway. It had the effect of preventing any exit except by way of the window, which presumably was not Professor Rigaud's intention. So Dr. Fell stood there with a gargantuan swaying motion rather like a tethered elephant, still rather wild-eyed and with his eyeglasses coming askew, controlling his breathing for Johnsonesque utterance to Miles.

“Sir,” he began, “I bring you news.”

“Fay Seton--?”

“Fay Seton is alive,” replied Dr. Fell. Then, with a clatter you could almost hear, he swept that hope away. “How long she lives will depend on the care she takes of herself. It may be months; it may be days, I fear I must tell you she is a doomed woman, as in a sense she has always been a doomed woman.”

For a little time nobody spoke.

Barbara, Miles noted in an abstracted way, was standing just where Fay had stood; by the chest-of- drawers, under the hanging lamp. Barbara's fingers were pressed to her lips in an expression of horror mingled with overwhelming pity.

“Couldn't we,” said Miles, clearing his throat, “couldn't we go over to the hospital and see her?”

“No, sir,” returned Dr. Fell.

For the first time Miles noticed that there was a police-sergeant in the hall behind Dr. Fell. Motioning to this sergeant, Dr. Fell squeezed his way through and closed the door behind him.

“I have just come from talking to Miss Seton,” he went on. “I have heard the whole pitiful story.” His expression was vaguely fierce. “It enables me o fill in the details of my own guesses and half-hits.” As Dr. Fell's expression grew more fierce, he put up a hand partly to adjust his eyeglasses and partly perhaps to shade his eyes. “But that, you see, causes the trouble.”

Miles' disquiet had increased.

“What do you mean, trouble?”

“Hadley will be here presently, with—harrumph--a certain duty to perform. Its result will not be pleasant for one person now in this room. That's why I thought I had better come here first and warn you. I thought I had better explain to you certain matters you may not have grasped even yet.”

“Certain matters? About--?”

“About those two crimes,” said Dr. Fell. He peered at Barbara as though noticing her for the first time. “Oh, ah!” breathed Dr. Fell with an air of enlightenment. “And you must be Miss Morell!”

“Yes! I want to apologize . . .”

“Tut, tut! Not for the famous fiasco of the Murder Club?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“A small matter,” said Dr. Fell, with a massive gesture of dismissal.

He lumbered to the frayed armchair, which had been pushed near one window. With the aid of his crutch- handled stick he sat down, the armchair accommodating him as best it could. After rolling back his shaggy head to take a reflective survey of Barbara, of Miles, an of Professor Rigaud, he reached into his inside breast pocket under the cape. From this he produced Professor Rigaud's sheaf of manuscript, now much crumpled and frayed at the edges.

And he produced something else which Miles recognized. It was the coloured photograph of Fay Seton, last seen by Miles at Beltring's Restaurant. With the same air of ferocity overlying bitter worry and distress, Dr. Fell sat studying the photograph.

“Dr. Fell,” said Miles. “Hold on! Half a minute!”

The doctor rolled up his head.

“Eh? Yes? What is it?”

“I suppose Superintendent Hadley's told you what happened in this room a couple of hours ago?”

“H'mf, yes. He's told me.”

“Barbara and I came in here and found Fay standing where Barbara is now, with the brief-case and a bundle of blood-stained banknotes. I—er--shoved those notes into my pocket just before Hadley arrived. I needn't have bothered. After asking a lot of questions which seemed to tend towards Fay's guilt, he showed he knew about the brief-case all along.”

Dr. Fell frowned. “Well?”

“At the height of the questioning, this light went out. Somebody must have thrown the main-switch in the fuse-box just outside in the passage. Someone or something rushed in here . . .”

“Someone,” repeated Dr. Fell, “or something. By thunder, I like the choice of words!”

“Whoever it was, it threw Fay to one side and ran out of here with the brief-case. We didn't see anything. I picked up the brief-case outside a minute later. It had nothing in it but the three other packets of notes and a little