John Carr - He Who Whispers

“She knew those anonymous letters, and all the rumours about her, were the work of Harry Brooke. But she never said so to anybody. I suppose,” Barbara shook her head slowly, “she may still have been in love with him.”

“After that?”

“Of course.”

“I don't believe it!”

“It might have been that. We all—we all are capable of awfully funny things. Or,” Barbara shivered, “there may have been some other reason for keeping silent, even after she knew Harry was dead. I don't know. The point it . . .”

“The point is,” said Miles, “why is Hadley keeping us here? And what's going on?” He considered. “Is it very far to this What's-its-name Hospital where they've taken her?”

“A goodish distance, yes. Were you thinking of going there?”

“Well, Hadley can't keep us here indefinitely for no apparent reason at all. We've got to get SOME kind of news.”

They received some kind of news. Professor Georges Antoine Rigaud—they heard his distinctive step long before they saw him— came slowly up the stairs, along the passage, and in at the open door.

Professor Rigaud seemed an older and even more troubled man than when he had voiced his theory about a vampire. Only a few drops of rain fell now, so that he was comparatively dry. His soft dark hat was jammed down all round his head. His patch of moustache worked with the movement of his mouth. He leaned heavily on the yellow sword-cane which acquired such evil colour in this dingy room.

“Mees Morell,” he said. His voice was husky. “Mr. Hammond. Now I will tell you something.”

He moved forward from the door.

“My friends, you are no doubt familiar with the great Musketeer romances of the elder Dumas. You will recall how the Musketeers went to England. You will recall that the only two words of English known to D'Artagnan were 'Come' and 'God damn.'” He shook a thick arm in the air. “Would that my knowledge of the English language were confined to the same harmless and uncomplicated terms!”

Miles sprang from the edge of the bed.

“Never mind D'Artagnan, Professor Rigaud. How did you get here?”

“Dr. Fell and I,” said the other, “have arrived back by car from the New Forest. We have telephoned his friend the police superintendent. Dr. Fell goes to the hospital, and I come here.”

“You've just come from the New Forest. How's Marion?”

“In health,” returned Professor Rigaud, “she is excellent. She is sitting up and eating food and talking what you call twenty to the dozen.”

“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.”