In Spite of Thunder (7 page)

“You see that dark-haired young man there? With the young lady in the white dress? Sitting at the table midway across on the edge of the dance-floor?”

“There?”

“Just there. Tell him he is summoned to the telephone. Tell him it’s here, by the bar. Tell him it’s very important. Tell him it’s from his home.”

The waiter shouted assent and dived again.

On the floor, wearing only her body-powder and a G-string, a tall and supple blonde was engaged in a mock Apache-dance with an undersized man wearing sinister underworld clothes from cap and muffler to chequered suit. Only, instead of the Apache hurling his girl all over the floor as the drums whacked on the down-beat, she was hurling him.

Again the Apache struck wood with a crash that jarred champagne-coolers and sifted up dust. The crowd whooped. The girl, icy-faced, caught him as he danced back. Next time he landed almost on the table of a stout, elderly couple in evening-clothes.

Philip Ferrier, white dinner-jacket somewhat rumpled, pushed through the crowd.

“There isn’t any ’phone-call,” said Brian, seizing his arm. “I’ve got to talk to you alone.”

“Listen! Audrey’s there by herself!”

“Suppose she is? This is quite a fashionable haunt.”

“Maybe it is,” retorted Philip, straightening his tie, “but it’s no place to take your girl unless she insists. If somebody thinks she’s one of the entertainers and asks her to go home with him—”

“Let’s not worry about that, shall we?”

“Look, what’s up? What’s the situation?”

“The situation,” said Brian, “is just about as bad as it can be.”

“Why?”

“Murder.”

He had to yell this word. The Apache went face down and managed to upset half a dozen glasses. Heat, doubt, uncertainty all wove like the beat of music.

“No, nobody has been killed just yet,” said Brian. “But it’s being arranged and I don’t know for whom. Paula Catford and Gerald Hathaway have both been persuaded, or challenged, to leave their hotel and go out to the Villa Rosalind tonight. I want you to do me a great favour. I want you to make the excuse that you’ve been called away. I want you to leave here now, and let me take Audrey back to her hotel.”

“That’s asking a hell of a lot, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. All the same, if you think as much of that damned fool girl as I believe you do, you’ll agree to it.”

“Look, I couldn’t leave her here even if I wanted to! If this is important, I can go with you!”

“No. You can’t do that either. I must talk to
her
alone.”

Philip swayed to keep his feet in the crush.

“So help me,” he began, “if I didn’t know you were old enough to be Aud’s father …!”

“I’m not quite as old as all that, you know.” Brian found himself talking more loudly than was necessary. “This way; do you mind?”

It might be quieter away from the centre of noise. Brian impelled his companion down past the length of the bar, where spectators stood on the rungs of bar-stools to peer over the heads of others. At the end of it, between the angle of the bar and a heavily curtained window overlooking the street, he spoke again.

“At any other time, I might feel inclined to give you some competition. Not now. I have no more interest in Audrey than I have in—in Paula Catford.”

(Now why had he said those last words?)

“You want me to say good-night to Aud here and now?”

“I don’t even want you to say good-night. Let me take the message for you; that’s even more important. When you understand the reason for all this, which may be quite soon, you’ll see it’s just as vital to you as it is to Audrey. If you care for her, you’ll go.”

Brian paused. He looked once, and looked again.

In the dim corner beyond the bar sat his friend Dr. Gideon Fell.

A mountain in the corner, his bandit’s moustache drawn down above several chins, his eyeglasses askew on the broad black ribbon, Dr. Fell cleared his throat with a rumbling noise that could be heard even here. He had an intent expression on his face and a large glass of Carlsberg lager in his hand.

“Sir,” he said courteously to Philip Ferrier, “may I urge you to do as Innes asks?”

“So-and-so!” breathed Philip, and tugged at his collar. “Can I depend on this?”

“You can,” said Brian, “and you know it. How soon is this first show over?”

“At any minute. We were going after that. The bill—”

“I’ll pay the bill. Try to believe Audrey’s future may depend on your going home now and asking no questions. You can ’phone her later, or she’ll ’phone you. Well?”

A slight hysteria had infected the night-club. Philip, a dazed young man who liked to feel he was being heroic, tried to take a last look in Audrey’s direction. Then he elbowed round and stalked away. Dr. Fell, glooming down over the mountainous ridges of himself, held up the glass of beer like a powerfully impressive television commercial.

“Sir,” Dr. Fell intoned with stately thunder, “I myself can refrain from asking questions in the event of necessity. However! In one word, what explains all this?”

“In one word: vitriol.”

“Oh, ah?”

“That’s not the only word, but it will do. You don’t put vitriol into a perfume-bottle as a joke.”

Dr. Fell’s eyes slid sideways.

“Not customarily, I agree. But I find the word vitriol less interesting than … harrumph! No matter! Go and see to the young lady.”

From the dance-floor, which was now invisible, a thump and angry cries rocked the house as the Apache shot feet-first into another party. Brian, butting his way through the crowd, emerged at the edge of the dance-floor.

Momentarily he was blinded by a second spotlight wheeling into his eyes from the gold and crimson stage. He stood there, shielding his eyes, amid a haze of cosmetic-dust and tobacco-smoke. With several conflicting feelings he watched Audrey at her ring-side table.

There could be no doubt she was enjoying herself hugely.

Though perhaps a little nervous in addition to being rapt and gleeful, she bent forward as the dancers stamped back for their final gyrations. Brian stared at her. Circling round the edge, he stopped at the table, moved in front of it, and towered above her.

“Oh!” said Audrey, almost as though she had seen a ghost.

“Good evening again,” said Brian, and sat down in the chair opposite.

“Really! What are
you
doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“How on earth did you find us?”

“Philip said you were having dinner at the Richemond, and then going on to a night-club. There aren’t all that many places to choose from.”

“I mean,” and two spots of colour burned in Audrey’s cheeks, “
what
are you doing here? What do you want with me?”

“I’m here to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

“
Yes.
You are not going to visit Eve Ferrier, either now or at any other time. Tomorrow morning I am putting you on a plane for London.”

“Now, really!” said Audrey. Her mouth fell open. “And what if I won’t do it, Mr. Brian Innes? What if I don’t choose to obey you? What will you do then?”

In the background, where the Apache groped towards his fellow-dancer, the tall blonde caught him a ringing wallop across the face and sent him sprawling as the music soared to its end. Brian pointed.

“
That
,” he answered. “Which is a great deal less than you deserve.”

The dancers, panting, bowed at the end of their number. A torrent of applause burst over the tables, drowning out what Audrey might have been saying. But she said nothing; she sat bolt upright and stared back at him. As the dancers scampered back up on the stage, bowing, the curtains swirled together and hid them. Every light in the room went out to mark the end of the first show. By this time Audrey was speaking, but he couldn’t hear her.

A long drum-roll was followed by the noise of shifting chairs, shifting people, a babble of talk. Ten seconds later the house-lights glowed out softly against a painted ceiling. Audrey had stood up, facing him across a silvered bucket with a champagne-bottle.

“As soon as Phil comes back from answering a ’phone-call,” Audrey cried, “we’re leaving here.”

“You think so?”

“Really, now!—”

“He isn’t coming back”

“I don’t know what you think you’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter in the least. I’ll go alone.”

“Oh, no, you won’t. Sit down.”

Audrey sat down.

“You and I,” Brian went on, taking the champagne-bottle out of its cooler and inspecting it, “are going to get a few things quite clear. Here.” Comparatively little was gone from the bottle; he filled Audrey’s glass.“People in love don’t drink much, do they?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No, of course I don’t! You—you say Philip’s not coming back? Why ever not?”

“Because I persuaded him not to see you for the moment. I said your future might depend on it. That happens to be true. He’s in love with you.”

“Whereas you’re not, are you?”

“Certainly I’m not. What makes you think I should be fool enough for that?”

“
Oh!
” said Audrey, and clenched her fists. But she had never been more attractive or desirable than as she said it. “You wouldn’t forbid me to go to Eve’s, would you, when we talked about it earlier tonight? Why are you doing it now?”

“I’ll give you just one of the reasons first.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. Sit still.”

Briefly but vividly, he sketched out the meeting with Hathaway, the meeting with Paula Catford, the aching reasons why a man couldn’t have been poisoned at Berchtesgaden, the entrance of Eve Ferrier, the appearance of a perfume-bottle and a letter from a German surgeon.

“Oil of vitriol?” echoed Audrey. “The stuff they throw in people’s faces?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“But Mr. Matthews couldn’t have been killed with it, could he?”

“Oh, no. Think of what I’ve been saying.” Brian rapped on the table and spoke in the manner of a stage-direction. “Thunder and lightning. Enter Desmond Ferrier, slightly drunk and full of the devil. When he ripped out that line from
Macbeth
, the bottle jumped out of his wife’s hand and smashed either by accident or design.”

“By design?”

“Yes. It could have been a stage-effect; Eve herself could have planned it. That’s why I don’t know where to look.”

“Haven’t you got a
horrible
mind?”

“Possibly. We all have. Now consider the sequel. Nobody else had seen it happen; we bribed the night-porter to hush it up and get rid of the evidence. Mrs. Ferrier used the incident as a reason why Hathaway and Miss Catford should leave the hotel, luggage and all, for her villa. They didn’t seem to be thinking very straight; they agreed. She next suggested we should get you too.”

Audrey, in the act of lifting her glass, set it down that time untasted.

“But Eve Ferrier didn’t know I was in Geneva a day early! Don’t you remember? Phil hadn’t let them know!”

“Well, Mrs. Ferrier knew. She said she’d heard it, and that it didn’t surprise her. Did you tell anyone besides Phil himself?”

“No.”

“Sure of that, Audrey?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

Brian watched her. The big room, after emptying of its first guests, had begun to fill again. Experimental squeals and plunks shook the orchestra-platform as the band tuned up. At the table behind Audrey, alone in vastness, with a fiercely apologetic look on his face and six bottles of beer in front of him, was Dr. Fell. A crutch-headed stick had been propped up against the table; waiters backed slowly away from him.

“Of course I’m sure!” Audrey repeated in a louder voice. “What was Mrs. Ferrier doing at the Hotel du Rhône?”

“Looking for her husband.”

“And Mr. Ferrier?”

“He didn’t say. Anyway!” Brian seemed to dismiss the point. “There were the five of us, in a sort of pandemonium. Mrs. Ferrier, I repeat, immediately wanted to take you with ’em. Since Hathaway was able to say you were putting up at the Metropole, I had to stop that one. I said you and Phil had gone to dinner, but that I hadn’t any idea where you could be found afterwards or what time you would return.”

“Oh?”

“Off they drove, with four or five hundredweight of luggage, in one private car and one taxi. Mrs. Ferrier ’phoned the Metropole at least twice before they left. By this time they’ll have reached home; she’ll be ’phoning the Metropole again.”

“Well, why shouldn’t she?”

The house-lights began slowly to dim. Brian raised his hand to a flying waiter.

“More champagne!” he said in French. “I take it,” he added politely, “you can bear to sit through the show again? Usually there are eight or ten turns, some of them very good.”

“If you think you’re making me do something against my will,” cried Audrey, “then you’d better think again. They
are
good, yes! Even if they’re not very nice and my father wouldn’t approve. You—you simply don’t expect to find anything like it here. I always associate Geneva with John Calvin and righteousness.”

“This is the French part of Switzerland. People tend to forget that. Look here, Audrey: do you seriously maintain you’re in love with young Philip Ferrier?”

There was a pause. The blue eyes opened wide.

“I most certainly do maintain it,” Audrey exclaimed, with every evidence of sincerity, “because it’s true. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

“I can think of a lot of reasons why your conduct is very peculiar if you are.”

“Name one of them, please.”

“With pleasure. When I got back from Paris this evening, I took a taxi straight from the airport to your hotel. I didn’t even stop at my flat on the way.”

“Dear, dear! That was very kind of you, I’m sure. But, as I said at the time …”

“Audrey, do you remember what you did say at the time? Stop and think. I was paying off the taxi when you came charging out of the hotel in a fine old stage of rage and near-panic. Before you realized you’d mistaken me for somebody else, you asked me what on earth I thought I was doing. You said I was too early, and I’d spoil everything.”

“All right! What about it?”