John Carr - He Who Whispers

Fay gave a quick, hypnotized nod.

“You left her alone in the bedroom in good health and spirits, at . . . about what time?”

“About midnight. I told Dr. Fell so.”

“Ah, yes. So you did— Had Miss Hammond undressed at this time?”

“Yes. She was in blue silk pyjamas. Sitting in a chair by the bedside table.”

“Now, Miss Seton! Considerably later, a shot was fired in Miss Hammond's room. Do you remember what time that was?”

“No. I'm afraid I haven't the remotest idea.”

Hadley swung around to Miles.

“Can you help us, Mr. Hammond? Everyone, including Dr. Fell himself, seems vague about times.”

“I can't help you,” answered Miles, “except in this one thing.” He paused, with the scene coming back to him. “After the shot, I ran up to Marion's bedroom. Professor Rigaud joined me, and a few minutes later Dr. Fell. Professor Rigaud asked me to go downstairs, to sterilize a hypodermic and do some other things in the kitchen. When I got to the kitchen, the time was twenty minutes to two. There's a big clock on the wall, and I remember noticing it.”

Hadley nodded. “So the time of the shot, roughly, was round about half-past one or a little later?”

“Yes. I should think so.”

“You agree with that, Miss Seton?”

“I'm afraid”--Fay lifted her shoulders--”I simply don't remember. I never paid any attention to the time.”

“But you did hear this shot?”

“Oh, yes. I was dozing.”

“And afterwards, I understand, you slipped upstairs and looked in at the bedroom door?--Excuse me, Miss Seton? I'm afraid I didn't quite catch that answer?”

“I said: yes.” Fay's lips shaped themselves with rounded distinctness. Something of last night's atmosphere returned to her, of heightened breathing and expression of eye.

“Your room is on the ground floor?”

“Yes.”

“When you heard this shot it the middle of the night, what made you think the noise came from upstairs? And from that room in particular?”

“Well! Soon after the shot I heard people running in the upstairs hall. Every sound carries at night.” For the first time Fay seemed honestly puzzled. “So I wondered what was wrong. I got up and put on a wrap and slippers, and lighted a lamp, and went upstairs. The door of Miss Hammond's room was wide open, and there was light inside. So I went there and peeped in.”

“What did you see?”

Fay moistened her lips.

“I saw Miss Hammond lying half in bed, holding a gun. I saw a man named Professor Rigaud—I'd known him before—standing on the far side of the bed. I saw,” she hesitated, “Mr. Miles Hammond. I heard Professor Rigaud say this was shock, and that Miss Hammond wasn't dead.”

“But you didn't go in? Or call out to them?”

“No!”

“What happened then?”

“I heard someone who sounded awfully heavy and clumsy start to walk up the front stairs at the other end of the hall,” answered Fay. “I know now it must have been Dr. Fell on his way to the bedroom. I turned out the lamp I was carrying, and ran down the back stairs. He didn't see me.”

“What was it that upset you, Miss Seton?”

“Upset me?”

“When you looked into that room,” Hadley told her with careful slowness, “You saw something that upset you. What was it?”

“I don't understand!”

“Miss Seton,” explained Hadley, putting away the notebook he had taken out of his inside breast pocket, “I've had to make all these elaborate inquiries to ask you just one question. You saw something, and it upset you so much that later you apologized to Mr. Hammond in Dr. Fell's presence for making what you called a disgraceful exhibition of yourself. You weren't frightened; the feeling wasn't in the least connected with fear. What upset you?”

Fay whirled round towards Miles. “Did you tell Dr. Fell?”

And Miles stared at her. “Tell him what?”

“What I said to you last night,” Fay retorted, her fingers twitching together, “when we were there in the kitchen and twitching together, “when we were there in the kitchen and I—I wasn't quite myself.”

“I didn't tell Dr. Fell anything,” Miles snapped, with a violence he could not understand. “And in any case what difference does it make?”

Miles took a step or two away from her. He bumped into Barbara, who also moved back. For a fraction of a second, as Barbara's head turned, he surprised on Barbara's face a look which completed his demoralization. Barbara's eyes had been fixed steadily on Fay for some time. In her eyes, slowly growing, was an expression of wonder; and of something else which was not dislike, but very near dislike.

If Barbara turns against her too, Miles thought, we might as well throw up the brief for the defense and retire. But Barbara of all people couldn't be turning against Fay! And Miles still fought back.

“I shouldn't answer any questions,” he said. “If Superintendent Hadley isn't here officially, he's got no blasted right to come barging in and hint that there'll be sinister consequences if you don't answer. Upset! Anybody would have been upset after what happened last night.” He looked at Fay again. “In any case, all you said to me was that you'd just seen something you hadn't noticed before, and . . .”

“Ah!” breathed Hadley, and rapped his bowler hat against the palm of his left hand. “Miss Seton had just seen something she hadn't noticed before! That's what we thought.”

Fay let out a cry.

“Why not tell us, Miss Seton?” suggested Hadley, in a tone of great persuasiveness. “Why not make the full confession you intended to make? If it comes to that, why not hand over the brief-case”--casually he pointed in the direction of it--”and the two thousand pounds and the other things as well? Why not . . .”

That was the point at which the light over the chest-of-drawers went out.

Nobody was prepared for danger. Nobody was alert. Everything was concentrated in that little space where Fay Seton faced Hadley and Miles and Barbara.

And, though nobody had touched the electric switch by the door, the light went out. With heavy black-out curtains drawn on the little windows, a weight of darkness descended on them like a hood over the face, blotting out rational thoughts as it blotted out images. There was a faint flicker of light from the passage outside as the door swiftly opened. And something rushed at them out of the passage.

Fay Seton screamed.

They heard the noise of it go piercing up. They heard a cry like, “Don't, don't, don't!” and a crashing sound as of someone falling over the big tin box in the middle of the floor. In a few seconds when Miles had forgotten a certain malignant influence, that influence had caught up with them. He lunged out in the darkness, and felt somebody's shoulder slip past him. The door to the passage banged. Somewhere there were running footsteps. Miles heard a rattle of rings as someone —it was Barbara—drew back the curtain of one window.

Grey rain-filtered light entered from Bolsover Place, along with the light from the moving teeth across the way. Superintendent Hadley ran to the window, flung it up, and blew a police-whistle.

Fay Seton ,unhurt, had been thrown back against the bed. She clutched at the counterpane to save herself from falling, and dragged it with her as she sank to her knees.

“Fay! Are you all right?”

Fay hardly heard him. She whipped round, her eyes going instinctively towards the top of the chest-of-drawers.

“Are you all right?”

“It's gone,” said Fay in a choked voice. “It's gone. It's gone.”

For the brief-case was no longer there. Ahead of anyone else, ahead of either Miles or Hadley, Fay jumped over the heavy tin box and ran towards the door. She ran with a headlong madness and an agility which carried her half-way down the passage, in the direction of the stairs, before Miles went racing after her.