He Who Whispers

“Now that man really loved his son. He had got two dazing revelations that afternoon. He meant to be very severe with the boy. But he wouldn't see Harry, poor idolized Harry, really in serious trouble. So he id the obvious thing, the only possible thing, to show he must have been attacked after Harry left.

“With his last strength he took his own raincoat out of the brief-case, an put it on again. Harry's now blood- stained too, he thrust into the case. He must get rid of that brief-case somehow. In a sense that was easy, because there was water just below.

“But he couldn't simply drop it over the edge, though the police of Chartres in their suicide theory thought he might accidentally have knocked it over. He couldn't drop it, for the not-very-abstruse reason that the brief-case would float.

“However, on the battlements of the parapet facing the riverside were big crumbling fragments of loose rock. These could be wrenched loose and put into the brief-case, fastened in with the straps, and the weighted case would sink.

“He managed to drop it over. He managed to take the sword-cane from ts scabbard, wipe its handle free from any trace of Harry's touch—that of course was why only his own fingerprints were found on it—and throw the two halves on the floor. Then Howard Brooke collapsed. He was not dead when the screaming child found him. He was not dead when Harry and Rigaud arrived. He died in Harry's arms, clinging pathetically to Harry and trying to assure his murderer it would be all right.

“God rest the man's soul,” added Dr. Fell, slowly putting up his hands to cup them over his eyes.

For a time Dr. Fell's wheezing breaths were the only sound in that room. A few drops of rain splattered outside the windows.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Fell, taking his hands away from his eyes and regarding his companions soberly, “I submit this to you now. I submit t, as I could have submitted it last night after reading the manuscript and hearing the report of Fay Seton's story, as the only feasible explanation of how Howard Brooke met his death.

“The stains inside the sword-stick, showing the blade must have been put back in the sheath and then taken out again before it was found! The bulging brief-case! Harry's disappearing raincoat! The missing fragments of rock from the parapet! The curious question of fingerprints!

“For the secret of this apparent miracle—which was not intended to be a mystery at all-lies in a very simple fact. It is the fact that one man's raincoat looks very much like another man's raincoat.

“We don't write our names in raincoats. They are not of a distinctive colour. They are made only in a few stock sizes; and we know that Harry Brooke “in height and weight,' as Rigaud says, was like his father. Among Englishmen especially it is a point of pride, even of caste and gentlemanliness, for his raincoat to be as old and disreputable as possible without becoming an actual eyesore. When next you go into a restaurant, observe the line of bedraggle objects hanging on coat-pegs and you will understand.

“Our friend Rigaud here never dreamed he had sen Mr. Brooke in two different coats at two different times. Since Mr. Brooke was actually dying in his own coat, nobody else ever suspected. Nobody that is, except Fay Seton.”

Professor Rigaud got to his feet and took little short steps up and down the room.

“She knew?” he demanded.

“Undoubtedly.”

“But after I saw her for a moment at the door of the tower, and she ran away from me, what did she do?”

“I can tell you,” Barbara said quietly.

Professor Rigaud, fussed and fussy, made gestures as though he would try to shush her.

“You mademoiselle? And how would it occur to you to know?”

“I can tell you,” answered Barbara simply, “because it's what I should have done myself.” Barbara's eyes were shining with a light of pain and sympathy. “Please let me go on! I can see it!

“Fay went for a swim in the river, just as she said she did. She wanted to feel cool; she wanted o feel clean. She'd really-really fallen in love with Harry Brooke. IN circumstances like that it'd be easy” Barbra shook her head, “to convince yourself . . . well! That the past was the past. That this was a new life.

“And then she'd just crept up to the tower, and heard. She heard what Harry had said about her. As though instinctively he knew it was true! As though the whole world could look at her and know it was true. She'd seen Harry stab his father, but she didn't think Mr. Brooke was seriously hurt.

“Fay dived into the river, and floated down towards the tower. There were no witnesses on that side, remember! And—of course!” cried Barbara. “Fay saw the brief-case fall from the tower!” Barbara afire with this new realization, turned to Dr. Fell. “Isn't that true?”

Dr. Fell inclined his head gravely.

“That, ma'am, is whang in the gold.”

“She dived down and got the brief-case. She carried it with her when she left the river, and hid it in the woods. Fay didn't know what was going on, of course; she didn't realize until later what must have happened.” Barbara hesitated. “Miles Hammond told me, on the way here, what her own story was. I think she never realized what was going on until . . .”

“Until,” supplied Miles, with an intensity of bitterness, “until Harry Brooke came rushing up to her, exuding hypocritical shock, and cried out, 'My God, Fay, somebody's killed Dad.' No wonder Fay looked a trifle cynical when sh told me!”

“One moment!” said Professor Rigaud.

After first giving the impression of hopping up and down, though in fact he did not move, Professor Rigaud raised his forefinger impressively.

“In this cynicism,” he declared, “I begin to see a meaning for much. Death of all lives, yes! This woman,”-- he shook his forefinger--”this woman now possesses evidence which can send Harry Brooke to the guillotine!” He looked at Dr. Fell. “Is it not so?”

“For you also,” assented Dr. Fell, “Whang in the gold.”

“In this brief-case,” continued Rigaud, his face swelling, “are the stones used to weigh it and Harry's raincoat stained with blood inside where his father has worn it. It would convince any court. It would show the truth.” He paused, considering. “Yet Fay Seton does not use this evidence.”

“Of course not,” said Barbara.

“Why do you say of course, mademoiselle?”

“Don't you see?” cried Barbara. “She'd got to a state of-of tiredness, of bitterness, where she could practically laugh? It didn't affect her any longer. She wasn't even interested in showing up Harry Brooke for what he was.

“She, the amateur harlot! He, the amateur murderer and hypocrite! Let's be indulgent to each other's foibles, and go our ways in a world where nothing will ever come right anyway. I—I don't want to sound silly, but that's how you really would feel about a situation like that.

“I thin,” said Barbara, “she told Harry Brooke. I think she told him she wasn't going to expose him unless the police arrested her. But, in case the police did arrest her, she was going to keep that brief-case with ts contents hidden away where nobody could find it.

“And she did keep the brief-case! That's it! She kept it for six long years! Sh brought I to England with her. It was always where she could find I. Bu she never had any reason to touch it, until . . . until . . .”

Barbara's voice trailed off.

Her yes looked suddenly and vaguely frightened, as though Barbara wondered whether her own imagination had carried her too far. For Dr. Fell, with wide-eyed and wheezing interest, was leaning forward in expectancy.

“Until--?” prompted Dr. Fell, in a hollow voice like wind along the Underground tunnel. “Archons of Athens! You're doing it! Don't stop there! Fay Seton never had any reason to touch the brief-case until . . .?”

But Miles Hammond hardly heard this. Sheer hatred welled up in his throat and choked him.

“So Harry Brooke,” Miles said, “Still got away with it?”

Barbara swung round from Dr. Fell. “How do you mean?”

“His father protected him,” Miles made a fierce gesture, “even when Harry bent over a dying man and mouthed out, 'Dad, who did this?' Now we learn that even Fay Seton protected him. “Steady, my boy!