He Who Whispers (26 page)

Neither Barbara nor Miles nor Professor Rigaud spoke, during a silence while you might have counted ten. Miles slowly rose to his feet. The torpor was leaving him. Gradually he saw …

‘The blow,' Miles said, ‘was struck just
then
?'

‘Yes. The blow was struck just then.'

‘And the time?'

‘The time,' returned Dr Fell, ‘was nearly ten minutes to four. Professor Rigaud there was very close to the tower.

‘The wound made by the blade was a deep, thin wound: the sort, we find in medical jurisprudence, that makes the victim think he is not at all badly hurt. Howard Brooke saw his son standing there white-faced and stupid, hardly realizing what he had done. What were the father's reactions to all this? If you know men like Mr Brooke, you can prophesy exactly.

‘Fay Seton, silent and unseen, had fled down the stairs. In the doorway she met Rigaud and ran from him. And Rigaud, hearing the voices upstairs, put his head inside the tower and shouted up to them.

‘In his narrative Rigaud tells us that the voices stopped instantly. By thunder, they did!

‘For, let me repeat, what were Howard Brooke's feelings about all this? He had just heard the hail of a family friend, Rigaud, who will be up those stairs as soon as a stout man can climb them. Was Mr Brooke's instinct, in the middle of this awkward mess, to denounce Harry? Lord of all domestic troubles, no! Just the opposite! His immediate desperate wish was to hush things up, to pretend somehow that nothing at all had happened.

‘I think it was the father who snarled to the son: “Give me your raincoat!” And I am sure it was quite natural for him to do so.

‘You – harrumph – perceive the point?

‘In the back of his own raincoat, as he saw by whipping it off, was a tear through which blood had soaked. But a good lined raincoat will do more than turn rain from outside. It will also keep blood from showing through from inside. If he wore Harry's coat, and somehow disposed of his own, he could conceal that ugly bleeding wound in his back …

‘You guess what he did. He hastily rolled up his own rain-coat, stuffed it into the brief-case, and fastened the straps. He thrust the sword-blade back into its scabbard (hence the blood inside); he tightened its threads and propped it up again. He put on Harry's raincoat. By the time Rigaud had toiled to the top of the stairs, Howard Brooke was ready to prevent scandal.

‘But, my eye! How that whole tense shivery scene on top of the tower takes on a different aspect if you read it like this!

‘The pale-faced son stammering, “But, sir –!” The father in a cold buttoned-up voice, “For the last time, will you allow me to deal with this matter in my own way?” This matter! And then, flaring out: “Will you take my son away from here until I have adjusted certain matters to my own satisfaction? Take him anywhere!” And the father turns his back.

‘There was a chill in the voice, a chill in the heart. You sensed it, my dear Rigaud, when you spoke of Harry, beaten and deflated, being led dumbly down those stairs. And Harry's sullen shining eye in the wood, while Harry wondered what in God's name the old man was going to do.

‘Well, what was the old man going to do? He was going to get home, of course, with that incriminating raincoat decently hidden in his brief-case. There he could hide scandal. My son tried to kill me! That was the worst revulsion of all. He was going to get home. And then …'

‘Continue, please!' prompted Professor Rigaud, snapping his fingers in the air as Dr Fell's voice died away. ‘This is the part I have not followed. He was going to get home. And then –?'

Dr Fell looked up.

‘He found he couldn't,' Dr Fell said simply. ‘Howard Brooke knew he was fainting. And he suspected he might be dying.

‘He saw quite clearly he couldn't get down that steep spiral stair, forty feet above ground, without pitching forward into space. He would be found fainting here – if nothing worse – wearing Harry's raincoat, and his own pierced bloodstained raincoat in the brief-case. Questions would be asked. The facts, properly interpreted, would be utterly damning to Harry.

‘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 did 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, and put it on again. Harry's, now bloodstained 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 accidently 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 river-side 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 its 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 spattered 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 it, 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 coat! 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 bedraggled objects hanging on coat-pegs and you will understand.

‘Our friend Rigaud here never dreamed he had seen Mr Brooke in two different coats at two different times. Since Mr Brooke was actually found 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 to feel clean. She'd really – really fallen in love with Harry Brooke. In circumstances like that it'd be easy,' Barbara 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 she told me!'

‘One moment!' said Professor Rigaud.

After 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 weight 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 think,' 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 its 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! She brought it to England with her. It was always where she could find it. But she never had any reason to touch it, until … until …'

Barbara's voice trailed off.

Her eyes 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! Steady!'

‘The Harry Brookes of this world,' said Miles, ‘always get away with it. Whether it's luck, or circumstance, or some celestial gift in their own natures, I don't pretend to guess. That fellow ought to have gone to the guillotine, or spent the rest of his life on Devil's Island. Instead it's Fay Seton, who never did the least harm to anybody, who …' His voice rose up. ‘By God, I wish I could have met Harry Brooke six years ago! I'd give my soul to have a reckoning with him!'

‘That's not difficult,' remarked Dr Fell. ‘Would you like to have a reckoning with him now?'

An enormous crash of thunder, rolling in broken echoes over the roof-tops, flung its noise into the room. Raindrops blew past Dr Fell as he sat by the window: not quite so ruddy of countenance now, with his unlighted pipe in his hand.

Dr Fell raised his voice.

‘
Are you out there, Hadley
?' he shouted.

Barbara jumped away from the door; staring, she groped back to stand at the foot of the bed. Professor Rigaud used a French expletive not often heard in polite society.

And then everything seemed to happen at once.

As a rain-laden breeze came in at the windows, making the hanging lamp sway over the chest of drawers, some heavy weight thudded against the outside of the closed door to the passage. The knob twisted only slightly, but frantically, as though hands fought for it. Then the door banged open, rebounding against the wall. Three men, who were trying to keep their feet while fighting, lurched forward in a wrestling-group which almost toppled over when it banged against the tin box.