Read Online He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr - Free Book Online Page A

added slowly:
    â€˜I didn’t do it for a joke.’
    â€˜No. I guessed that.’
    â€˜Did you?’ cried Barbara. ‘Did you?’
    The cab jolted. Motor-car lamps, odd in newness, once or twice swept the back of the cab with their brief unaccustomed glare through dingy rain-misted windows.
    Barbara turned towards him. She put out a hand to steady herself against the glass partition in front. Anxiety, apology, a curious embarrassment, and – yes! her obvious liking for him – shone in her expression as palpably as her wish to tell him something else. But she did not speak that something else. She only said:
    â€˜What was the other reason?’
    â€˜Other reason?’
    â€˜You told me there were two reasons why you regretted this – this foolishness of mine to-night. What’s the other one?’
    â€˜Well!’ He tried to sound light and casual. ‘Hang it all, I was a good deal interested in that case of the murder on the tower. Since Professor Rigaud probably isn’t on speaking terms with either of us –’
    â€˜You may never hear the end of the story. Is that it?’
    â€˜Yes, that’s it.’
    â€˜I see.’ She was silent for a moment, tapping her fingers on her handbag, her mouth moving in an odd way and her eyes shining almost as though there were tears in them. ‘Where are you staying in town?’
    â€˜At the Berkeley. But I’m going back to the New Forest to-morrow. My sister and her fiancé are coming up for the day, and we’re all travelling back together.’ Miles broke off. ‘Why do you ask?’
    â€˜Maybe I can help you.’ Opening her handbag, she drew out a folded sheaf of manuscript and handed it to him. ‘This is Professor Rigaud’s own account of the Brooke case, specially written for the archives of the Murder Club. I – I stole it from the table at Beltring’s when you went to look for him. I was going to post it on to you when I’d finished reading, but I’ve already learned the only thing I really wanted to know.’
    Insistently she thrust the manuscript back into his hands.
    â€˜I don’t see how I can be of any use now,’ she cried. ‘I don’t see how I can be of any use now!’
    With a grind of gears into neutral, with the whush of tyres erratically scraping a kerb, the taxi drew up. Ahead loomed the cavern of Piccadilly Circus from the mouth of Shaftesbury Avenue, murmurous and shuffling with a late crowd. Instantly Barbara was across the cab and outside on the pavement.
    â€˜Don’t get out!’ she insisted, backing away. ‘I can go straight home in the Underground from here. And the taxi’s going your way in any case. – Berkeley Hotel!’ she called to the driver.
    The door slammed just before eight American G.I.’s, in three different parties, bore down simultaneously on the cab. Against the gleam of a lighted window Miles caught a glimpse of Barbara’s face, smiling brightly and tensely and unconvincingly in the crowd as the taxi moved away.
    Miles sat back, holding Professor Rigaud’s manuscript and feeling it figuratively burn his hand.
    Old Rigaud would be furious. He would demand to know, in a frenzy of Gallic logic, why this trick had been played on him. And that was not funny; that was only just and reasonable; for Miles himself had still no notion why. All of which he could be certain was that Barbara Morell’s motive had been a strong one, passionately sincere.
    As for Barbara’s remark about Fay Seton …
    â€˜You wonder what it would be like to be in love with her.’
    What infernal nonsense!
    Had the mystery of Howard Brooke’s death ever been solved, by the police or by Rigaud or by anyone else? Had they learned who committed the murder, and how it was done? Evidently not, from the tenor of the professor’s remarks. He had said he knew what was ‘wrong’ with Fay