In Spite of Thunder

by John Dickson Carr

“Go on.”

  “You arrived here to take her away. You spoke to me, and I told you where to find her room. You went upstairs to her room. You rapped at that door; you entered when there was no answer. Miss Page was standing at the window and looking to the left in horror. You ran to her side in time so that both of you saw Mrs. Ferrier fall.

  “There is no unconvincing tale of a woman ‘talking to herself’ in the study. Instead it provides an alibi, both for you and for Miss Page, which no questioning can shake if you hold to it. Is this, or is it not, a better account than your own?”

  Ten seconds crawled by, while thunder assaulted the balcony.

  “Yes. Yes, it’s better.” Brian’s old sardonic mood surged back. “You’ve had more experience, of course. But Audrey ran away! And I told her to!”

  “Oh, no. I told her.”

  “You—”

  “The girl was shocked and hysterical; she could do no good. I advised her to leave while you and I took charge. I am slightly acquainted with M. Aubertin, the Director of the Police; he has visited London half a dozen times. Can you trust me in the matter, as you and others have trusted me before?”

  “It’s not a question of trusting you! Dr. Fell, do you know the real explanation of this business?”

  “For some part, yes. I think I do.”

  “Will you tell me that explanation?”

  “Yes! As soon as we can leave here without suspicion, I must question Miss Page and you will learn the truth. I could not hide it if I would; everybody will learn in less than twenty-four hours. If you agree, I can protect the girl with whom you are so obviously in love. If you refuse—”

  “God’s truth, how can I refuse? But Audrey—!”

  “Oh, ah! Miss Page must agree with the story.” Dr. Fell wheezed heavily, moving his shoulders and groping within his scatterbrain. “She left here, you said, at about twenty minutes past nine. What, exactly, did you tell her to do?”

  “Audrey can’t drive a car, or she could have used mine. But it’s only three kilometres, less than two miles, to the outskirts of Geneva. She was to walk there and get a taxi.”

  “We must speak to her before the police do. You understand that?”

  “That’s simple. She can’t be far away. I can drive after her and—”

  “No! Every move of ours will be scrutinized later. Never chase a witness after you have dismissed her as guilelessly unhelpful. Somebody will report it and the authorities are going to wonder. By the same token we can’t leave a message at the Hotel Metropole or have her ring this house. Did you tell her not to speak a word of this to anyone until you saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that should suffice. Or I hope it will. I hope so!”

  And yet Brian, as the other persuaded him through the window into the study, hesitated amid all the fangs of uncertainty.

  “Oh, ah!” grunted Dr. Fell. “If you say you have no relish for this affair, your liking is still ecstatic compared to mine.” He spoke with a kind of sick violence. “But I failed miserably to prevent one tragedy. There must not be another. Now unlock that door before they think us the conspirators we are. And if, unfortunately, we must probe into Miss Page’s relations with a certain actor …”

  Conspirators.

  Another tragedy.

  Miss Page’s relations with a certain actor.

  The girl with whom you are so obviously in love …

  Well, it was true he was in love with her; he couldn’t deny it to himself, now, though he might deny it to others. And Audrey’s image never left him.

  The light of a chromium desk-lamp shone down on a manuscript, leaving most of the study in shadow. Brian went over to the door, taking the key out of his pocket. An enormous crash of thunder, rattling the glass ashtray and the bowl of roses and every picture-frame round the walls, struck at them as he unlocked the door.

  Just outside, knuckles raised as though to knock, stood Desmond Ferrier.

  IX

  DESMOND FERRIER.

  He wore pyjamas, slippers, and a brocaded dressing-gown. Tall, unshaven, hair tousled in morning light, he looked every minute of his fifty-eight years. But the intense vitality remained, though the swagger and the smile had vanished.

  It was almost as though, behind that lifted hand, his eyes awaited or expected something he dreaded to hear.

  The echoes of the thunder died away. Dr. Fell, who had been standing with his back to the windows, lumbered forward in a mood of heavy and lowering distress.

  “Sir,” he said gravely, “I have news which will come as a very unpleasant shock. And yet, in a certain sense, it may be that the news is not unexpected. Your wife, as you see, is not here.”

  The Adam’s apple moved in Ferrier’s long throat. A fixed kind of look, almost a glare, sprang into his eyes before it was masked.

  “Last night,” continued Dr. Fell, “you said Mrs. Ferrier might try to kill Audrey Page, might try to kill herself, or might try to kill you. I believed, if you recall, that the danger was to Mrs. Ferrier.”

  The famous voice went a little off-key.

  “Eve’s a decent old girl. Always has been. What is it?”

  “However, even if I warned you, it does not excuse my stupidity in failing to see—”

  “Oh, so-and-so! What’s happened?”

  “No!” said Dr. Fell, as the other took a step forward. “Not in here. Let us go down to the drawing-room, and I will tell you. Mr. Innes!”

  “Well?”

  Brian spoke curtly as he watched Ferrier. When he thought of Audrey Page in this man’s arms, his mind grew as poisoned with jealousy as Dr. Fell’s had grown poisoned with self-reproach. And yet he couldn’t really hate the man, and he wondered why. Then he saw something else.

  Paula Catford, a look of horror and compassion on her face, stood not five feet away in the hall. She was fully dressed, her nails red-varnished, her hands clasped together.

  “Mr. Innes,” roared Dr. Fell, “in Miss Page’s bedroom there is an extension telephone. Be good enough to get in touch with the Bureau of the Police at Geneva. Ask to speak to M. Gustave Aubertin, and say you have a message from me. No matter how difficult it may be, have no traffic with anyone else. When you speak to M. Aubertin, tell him as much or as little as you think fit.”

  “Sweet Christ!” said Desmond Ferrier, from deep in his throat. “Have you got to do that?”

  “Yes!” retorted Dr. Fell. “You asked for my help, and you shall have it. But this must be done in good order.” He controlled himself. “Mr. Innes?”

  “I’m listening, thanks.”

  “Speak to M. Aubertin, please, and then join us downstairs.”

  Emotional currents, in that group, were as heavy as the pressure of the freak weather. Brian stalked out, suddenly conscious of his stained and dishevelled appearance. He went into Audrey’s room, or the one they called Audrey’s room, and closed the door.

  It was here that Audrey had told him most of her stammered, faltering story. The one small suitcase she had brought—open, but not fully unpacked—lay where he had first seen it on a chair near the foot of the bed.

  She had committed no murder, of course. That ought to have satisfied him. But it didn’t.

  The telephone was on a small table at the head of the bed. Reaching out to pick it up and dial zero, he hesitated.

  A whole genie-bottle of images swam in his head. Audrey’s presence remained as vivid as Paula Catford’s eyes or as Eve Ferrier’s haggard air. It was the recollection of the unmade bed in Hathaway’s room and of the ivory crucifix above it, curiously enough, which gave him the strongest sensation of evil flowing out from a source he could only feel: not see.

  Stop this!

  The time must be getting on. At his flat, in the Quai Turrettini, Madame Duvallon would have come in at nine-thirty to get his breakfast. …

  Breakfast, Madame Duvallon. Madame Duvallon, that stout and hearty elderly woman, who was as loyal as a bull-terrier and could be trusted w
ith anything.

  Brian sat down on the bed and dialled his own number. The ringing-tone had hardly buzzed before he heard Madame Duvallon’s voice.

  “It is you, monsieur?”

  “It is I, madame. No, no, I shall not be there! But listen: a young lady will be there, I cannot tell how soon. Will you wait for her, if necessary? Will you give her an important message?”

  He hardly needed the instant attention or shivering assurance.

  “Say to her, ‘My dear, our plans are changed.’ Say that she is not to leave the flat or speak to anyone until I arrive. She is not to speak by telephone or open the door if anyone rings. Madame Duvallon! When you yourself go, leave your latch-key in the mailbox downstairs. Is it understood?”

  Though Madame Duvallon’s nerves must have screamed with curiosity, you would never have told it from her poised voice.

  “Very well understood, monsieur! That is all?”

  “Except this. Should you ever be questioned about the young lady, you never saw her and you have never even heard of her. That is all, thanks.”

  Brian sat back.

  His next call, to the police, took him surprisingly little time. For all the delay he expected, he was soon speaking to a sharply intelligent voice whose suavity changed to concern. Afterwards he hurried downstairs. What he heard from the drawing-room, before he could see anyone, halted him in the middle of the staircase.

  “—and that, sir,” said the voice of Dr. Fell, “is a reasonably full account of Miss Page’s and Mr. Innes’s testimony. That is what they saw from the window of the bedroom.”

  Desmond Ferrier, though shaken, uttered a ringing oath.

  “So that’s it! Just like old Hector What’s-his-name at Berchtesgaden?”

  “Apparently, and I stress the word apparently, that is the case.”

  “Eve was alone?”

  “In a certain sense, yes.”

  “So the poor old girl committed suicide? Chucking herself off the balcony?”

  “At first glance, and also let us stress at first glance, your wife could have killed herself in that particular way.”

  “Then why do you want to question me? Anyway, I can’t tell you anything about this morning. I was sound asleep until Paula knocked on the door and said she thought there was something wrong.”

  “That’s true,” cried the voice of Paula Catford.

  “Sir,” roared Dr. Fell, “I am not much concerned with this morning or even late last night. I am concerned with certain events from yesterday afternoon to yesterday evening. Above all I am concerned with certain diversions (let us politely call them affairs of the heart!) which have been occupying a number of people.”

  Dead silence.

  The drawing-room, in semi-darkness except for the yellow light above the portrait of Desmond Ferrier as Hamlet, had taken on a somewhat wild quality like that of storm-clouds outside the eastern windows.

  Ferrier, nervous and drawn of countenance, stood beneath the portrait with his back to the fireplace. Paula stood at one side of him. Dr. Fell, throned in an overstuffed chair whose white slip-cover stood out against gloom, sat partly facing them and held an album of photographs. On the mantelpiece lay Sir Gerald Hathaway’s hat.

  Brian’s footfalls were distinct on hardwood as he entered. Dr. Fell addressed him without turning round.

  “Did you reach Aubertin?”

  “I did. M. Aubertin presents his most distinguished compliments, and says he’ll be here in half an hour.”

  Ferrier snatched his hands out of the pockets of the brocaded dressing-gown.

  “Half an hour? They’re really going to—?”

  “Why shouldn’t they?” asked Brian. “He also presents you his most distinguished compliments, and his condolences on the death of … the rest of it.”

  “I’m a bastard and I admit I am,” said Ferrier, looking straight at Brian. “But there’s no need to stress it as much as that.”

  “Nobody is stressing it. Nobody is even saying it.”

  “Have a drink?”

  “Not now, thanks.”

  It was Dr. Fell who intervened at this point.

  “Let us return,” he suggested, “to Mrs. Ferrier. And to a certain flaming love-affair. And to what happened yesterday that led towards an explosion. We have just half an hour for talking frankly among ourselves.”

  “All right, if you insist.” Ferrier took a packet of cigarettes out of his dressing-gown pocket. “Is it important?”

  “Is it important? Oh, my eye! You are an intelligent man, my dear sir. You know it is.”

  “Well?”

  “What happened yesterday,” said Dr. Fell, “I have tried to piece together from various matters that were told me and others I overheard and some I saw. I need not detail them. But much of it is still dark and o’ermisted.

  “Indulge me, now! I arrived at this house about noon. You and your wife and I, only the three of us, had an excellent lunch at half-past one. Your wife was then in the gayest of spirits. She was almost radiant. You remember?”

  Ferrier nodded. He took out a cigarette, but did not light it.

  “Some time afterwards you made your excuses, without saying where you were going, and drove away in the big car. I believe,” Dr. Fell raised his eyebrows, “I believe you drove to the airport and met Miss Audrey Page?”

  “Yes.”

  “You also asked whether you might drop in at Miss Page’s hotel, about midnight the same evening, so that you could talk to Miss Page about your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  Taking a lighter out of his pocket, Ferrier snapped it on and touched it to the cigarette and inhaled with a great gust: all in one flashing movement, his face illumined under the illumined portrait.

  “This was, in fact, to warn Miss Page that Mrs. Ferrier was in a dangerous mood of jealousy?”

  “Yes.”

  Paula, in a primrose-yellow dress contrasting with a curious steely expression about her face, went over and sat down on the sofa opposite Dr. Fell. Ferrier did not even seem to see her.

  “But you did not keep your appointment for midnight? You did not warn Miss Page?”

  “No. You know damn well I didn’t. I was with you at midnight, and I told you about it anyway.”

  “Good!” said Dr. Fell.

  “The rest of that same afternoon,” he went on gently, “I myself spent here in the drawing-room with Mrs. Ferrier. She remained in the best of spirits. She brought down her press-cutting books; one of them is still here in the room.

  “You returned before six o’clock. Your son, Philip, had already returned from Dufresne’s Bank. Officially, neither you nor your wife was supposed to know of Philip’s plan for taking Miss Audrey Page to dinner. Now Mrs. Ferrier knew it; she confided it to me, with much pleasure and some archness, in the course of the afternoon. Did you know of it?”

  “My dear old boy,” said Ferrier, with a broad and curling grin, “I hardly see how it matters.”

  “Then let me refresh your memory. I am leading up to the explosion.”

  The glow of Ferrier’s cigarette pulsed and darkened.

  “Let us imagine,” said Dr. Fell, his eyes unwavering, “that it is yesterday evening at shortly before seven. Philip has gone upstairs to dress. You and Mrs. Ferrier and I are not changing: no, we are having dinner at home. We are here in the drawing-room, again the three of us. You and Mrs. Ferrier are having a cocktail, and I a glass of sherry.”

  “Speaking of that point—”

  “No!”

  Dr. Fell’s uplifted hand halted Ferrier as he started for a sideboard between the two front windows. The latter remained where he was, still smiling.

  “I will drop the present tense,” said Dr. Fell. “Quite suddenly you put down your cocktail glass on that coffee-table over there. You said to your wife, ‘My dear, I have just remembered that I must go out.’ She cried at you, ‘You must go out before dinner?’ ‘Alas,’ you said, ‘I must go out for dinner itself.’

&n
bsp; “There then followed,” pursued Dr. Fell, “what I shall be forgiven for describing as a blazing and embarrassing family row. You were accused of deserting your guest. I protested, with truth and vehemence, that it did not matter.

  “Philip, on his way to the Hotel Metropole, attempted to intervene and was sent packing in the Bentley. Your wife asked you flatly where you were going. You smiled, as you are smiling now, and said you meant to have dinner alone. Presently you drove away in the Rolls-Royce. Where did you go, by the way?”

  Ferrier drew deeply at the cigarette.

  “I had dinner alone,” he answered.

  “Where?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. By the way, Fell, was this when I decided to murder my wife?”

  “Oh, no,” said Dr. Fell.

  He sat back in the chair.

  “If we adopt a joking tone, sir,” he added politely, “the others must still understand we are both deadly serious. You and I know that, don’t we?”

  “We do.”

  “Your wife was not yet angry. Not really angry. Not raging, and half out of her mind. That had yet to come. When Mrs. Ferrier and I sat down to another admirable meal prepared by the maid, she was under a strong nervous tension: no more than that. I beg you to observe she did not really hate anyone, including Miss Audrey Page.

  “But she was wondering. She was speculating. I wished I could read her eyes. As we sat here having coffee after dinner, I in this chair and she on the sofa where Miss Catford is sitting now, something else occurred to her. She sprang up without a word, and walked out of the room.

  “I was not disturbed. Life among artists can be a fascinating business. How long a time elapsed, while I sat and mused in my customary half-witted fashion, it is impossible to estimate. It may have been an hour, or it may have been very much longer. But I was somewhat startled to hear high heels rapping down the stairs where informal low heels had gone up. I glanced round towards the hall there. Need I tell you what I saw?”

  Two voices spoke out.

  Paula Catford said: “No; it won’t be necessary to tell us.”

  Desmond Ferrier snapped: “Paula, my sweetie-pie, you’d better take a little care. You may not know what you’re saying.”