In Spite of Thunder

by John Dickson Carr

  Fool! Idiot!

  Vividly he remembered putting down Madame Duvallon’s latchkey on the portable bar. He had neglected to pick it up again. When he went downstairs for Audrey’s suitcase—also forgotten, in the tumult of meeting Hathaway—the spring-lock of the door snapped shut after him. If anything had happened to Audrey …

  Brian stood still. He was in a familiar corridor, haunted by the ghosts of so many cooked meals. You sensed the presence of people all about you, though you never saw any of them. In somebody’s flat a television set throbbed with muffled life; he knew it was a television, not a radio, from the hoarser, heavier sound.

  If anything had happened to Audrey …

  “Nonsense!” he said aloud.

  But he pressed the door-buzzer, he pressed it for many seconds and heard it clamour inside. He called Audrey’s name. There was no voice or footstep in response.

  His first thought, that Eve Ferrier might have returned to carry away Audrey in the dark, was morbid and unlike him. Yet he seized the knob of the door, twisting it and pushing. And the door yielded, almost flinging him into an unlighted entry.

  It had been closed but unfastened, its spring-lock set at the open position. That must have been done by Audrey herself, who could easily have left unseen while he was talking to Hathaway. He began to believe this as he ran from little room to little room, switching on lights. He knew it for certain when, in the bedroom, he encountered a message scrawled in lipstick across the dressing-table mirror.

  “I love you too,” ran Audrey’s message. “Please forgive what I’m going to do.”

  The city’s night-noises, through open windows, made a reedy cacophony above the rushing of the river. Brian returned to the living-room.

  Nothing seemed disturbed there, including the glasses he and Audrey had drunk from, until his frantic eye studied the telephone. Though the telephone did not seem to have been moved either, the little note-pad had been pulled to one side.

  There was nothing written on that note-pad. Nor could you distinguish any marks, either, until you held it tilted beside the light of a lamp. Words written by a sharp-pointed pencil, on a thin top-sheet torn off, had left their imprint on the leaf below.

  From his desk Brian took a blunter pencil of soft lead. Putting down the pad on the desk, he gently began to black out the surface of the under-sheet so that the writing might emerge in the white of its indentations.

  “Desmond Ferrier. Desmond Ferrier. Desmond Ferrier.” That name, written three times, emerged as Audrey must have scrawled it as she sat by the telephone and poured out what was in her mind. He could almost see her writing it while she waited for the number she had dialled.

  The grey-black surface crept down on the paper. Next, sharply written in the middle of the sheet, emerged an address she must have received over the phone. The words were also underscored.

  Caverne des Sorcières,

  16 rue Jean Janvier

  Twenty minutes.

  There were no more indentations.

  Caverne des Sorcières. Cave of the Witches. He knew where he had heard that name before.

  Cave of the Witches.

  Brian tore off this sheet and put it in his pocket. When he looked up at the black-and-white sketch of Audrey Page, yearning at him from the wall between the windows, he neither cursed her impetuousness nor raved at her tendency to face danger even though she might be in mortal terror of it. He was thinking of Dr. Fell’s warning.

  “I failed miserably to prevent one tragedy,” Dr. Fell had said. “There must not be another.”

  This was the point at which the clamour of the door-buzzer, piercing through his thoughts, made him jump up from the chair beside the desk.

  It could only be the police.

  If there had been any other way out of the flat, Brian would have bolted. They were not going to keep him from Audrey. On the other hand, they were not going to learn of this address until he himself had discovered what Audrey thought she was doing.

  The door-buzzer went on shrilling. It wouldn’t stop; it wouldn’t leave off piercing his nerves. Presumably Dr. Fell and M. Aubertin had seen him, as he had seen them. He could hardly pretend not to be there, and he had no means of leaving the flat except through that clamouring door.

  It was not the police, as he discovered when he opened the door. Paula Catford, seeming perhaps a little less good-natured and sympathetic, hesitated only a moment before she brushed past him without any invitation to enter.

  “You must forgive this intrusion, Mr. Innes.” She wheeled round in the entrance-hall, her colour high. “I’m afraid I must see her. Where is she?”

  “If you mean Audrey …”

  “Please, please! Of course I mean Audrey. Don’t tell me she’s not here. There’s nowhere else she could have gone.”

  “That,” Brian answered bitterly, “is what everyone else says. Have it your own way: she was here, right enough, but she’s gone out.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. And I’m afraid I have got to go out too. Immediately. I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but will you excuse me?”

  “No. I can’t excuse you. Murder isn’t a joke; there’s somebody with a sick mind among us; the police are getting closer for an arrest.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? Anyway, what do you want with Audrey?”

  “Mr. Innes, why did she telephone to Desmond Ferrier a little while ago?”

  Brian looked over at the clock on the bookshelves. It was nearly ten minutes past nine, much later than he had expected.

  “Quite by accident,” said Paula, “I picked up an extension-’phone and heard them talking. That’s easy to do, with so many extension-’phones at the villa. I put it down immediately, of course. But why did she ring up? Why did Desmond go out?”

  Paula, at least, was harmless. The clock-ticks grew more imperative. Brian made up his mind.

  “I can tell you what I think, at least, if you’ll answer something in return.”

  “Anything, believe me! Oh, anything!”

  “What, exactly, is the Cave of the Witches? Did Ferrier really have dinner there last night?”

  “I—I beg your pardon?”

  “Ferrier said he did, though he added ‘if you could call it a dinner.’ That doesn’t sound the sort of name any restaurant would adopt. He also seemed to think, for some reason, I ought to know of the place.”

  “The Cave of the Witches!” Paula looked badly startled. “Is that where he and Audrey went tonight?”

  “Answer the question, will you?”

  “The Cave of the Witches! It’s in the rue Jean Janvier, off the rue de l’Hotel de Ville in the Old Town. That’s why Desmond must have said you ought to know it; he was joking.”

  “Believe it or not, I am getting a bit fed up with the sort of remark Desmond Ferrier seems to think is a joke.”

  “Please!” Paula spoke sharply. “In the eighteen-eighties and eighteen-nineties, here in Geneva, there was a painter who used the pseudonym of Jean Janvier. I did a story about him. Didn’t you ever hear of Jean Janvier?”

  “No.”

  “He wasn’t a very good painter, they say. But he was colourful. He specialized in witchcraft, vampirism, and all kinds of sadistic horrors as well. The work fascinated a lot of people. In the early nineteen hundreds there was a little museum of his paintings; but some said they were indecent and others lost interest. Janvier pictures were a drug on the market.

  “Then, after World War Two, somebody had a brand-new idea. A man named Lafargue bought up a job lot of the lurider canvases, and opened a combination restaurant and night-club in the street where Janvier lived. It’s mainly an odd kind of night-club, though you can get a meal of sorts in the evening. The—the attractions go on later.”

  “What attractions?”

  Paula dismissed this.

  “It doesn’t matter! Many people get a terrific thrill out of waitresses and other attendants who have good figures but papi
er-mâché skulls for heads. It’s mostly crude, of course, but some of the effects can be quite frightening.”

  “And that’s supposed to be an entertainment?”

  “Yes. Like a very sophisticated version of the Ghost Trains and Haunted Mills at amusement parks.” Some emotion not remote from fear had begun to gather in Paula’s expressive eyes. “Please tell me!” she added. “Did Desmond take Audrey there?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you. I wasn’t here when she ’phoned him. Why should he have taken her there?”

  “That’s what I don’t know! You see. …”

  “Go on!”

  “It was a favourite place of Eve’s. They even modelled a mask of her face. Mr. Innes, have you told anyone about this?”

  “No; I’ve just discovered it. Everything’s happened in less than half an hour.”

  “Then don’t tell anyone! Will you promise?”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell what sort of mood Desmond may be in. Your Audrey Page seems quite a pleasant sort of person; I’m sure she is, and I know you’re very fond of her.” Paula’s voice rose up. “But she has caused quite a lot of trouble. It may be Desmond is—is trying to punish her by frightening her a little.”

  Brian’s tone changed. “Is he, now? And that’s his idea of a joke too?”

  The words held a compressed, controlled violence; it was as though he had struck her in the face. For once the alert and fragile-seeming Paula, so sensitive to the reactions of others, must have misjudged the effect she wanted to produce. It was evident that she knew it. Paula sprang forward.

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “You know where I’m going.”

  “No. You mustn’t. I won’t let you.”

  The outer door of the flat still stood wide open, admitting more reminders of past meals. The television set talked distantly and hoarsely. Paula, running to the door, slammed it shut and set her back against it.

  “Brian, I beg and plead with you! You don’t understand everything!”

  “I don’t understand anything. Get away from that door.”

  “The police—”

  “Never mind the police. Last night, when oil of vitriol splashed the floor, I had to pick you up bodily and swing you round from it. Must I do the same thing now? Get away from that door!”

  “I hate saying this, please believe I hate saying it. But you’ve got to mind the police, after the plain, simple untruths—there’s no other word for it!—you and Dr. Fell have been telling M. Aubertin about Audrey Page.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you forgotten I was upstairs at the villa this morning, and very much alive and awake, when you were in Sir Gerald Hathaway’s room with Dr. Fell? And you confided in him what really happened in the study before Eve fell to her death? If the police hear what did happen, and what Eve said to Audrey just then, won’t Audrey go to prison as perhaps she ought to go?”

  XIII

  AND IT STOPPED Brian in his tracks. It was the only check which could have held him back.

  He looked at Paula, studying her.

  As though challenging him, she had twisted the knob of the spring-lock and pulled the door a few inches open: still holding it behind her, guarding it, while he heard the familiar noises from the corridor outside.

  Paula’s expression grew even more intent.

  “You’re going to call this blackmail I can’t help that. Yes! I did listen outside Sir Gerald’s room this morning. No! I haven’t told the police and I don’t want to, though I did ride to town in the same car with M. Aubertin and Dr. Fell and Phil Ferrier a little while ago. Call me anything you like! I’m fighting for something that’s very dear to me; I’ll do whatever I must.”

  Brian did not reply.

  “What is it?” she asked suddenly. “What are you doing?”

  Still without speaking, he hurried away into the living-room. This had a broad doorway; and, beside the doorway, an arched opening through which you could see the whole of that room from the entry.

  He felt an inexorable sense of time rushing past, of minutes falling into eternity while Audrey was being “punished” and frightened by some grotesque claptrap in a cellar of the rue Jean Janvier. The knowledge of this did not soothe his wrath.

  From the portable bar he picked up Madame Duvallon’s latch-key. It was as though, by turning away, he had yielded and lost the game. Paula knew he hadn’t.

  “What are you doing now?”

  Brian put the key in his pocket and returned.

  “Once before, when I went out of here, I forgot this key. Now I’m going out again.”

  “You’re not!”

  “All I propose,” he said, “is a visit to a public night-club in a public street. Is there any reason to use such heavy threats in trying to stop me?”

  “Yes; I’m sorry to say there is. Your precious Miss Audrey Page, as though you didn’t know it, has caused far too much trouble already. She must have threatened and devilled Desmond Ferrier until he hadn’t any choice but to meet her there.”

  “At the Cave of the Witches? Audrey asked him to do that?”

  “What else?”

  “My dear Paula, come off it. I’ll give you ten to one Audrey’s never even heard of the place.”

  “Well, she was the one who rang him up! She was the one who made him look like death when he left the villa. I tell you, I won’t see him unhappy any longer! He’s suffered far too much already.”

  “Suffered? That fellow?”

  The lash of contempt sent Paula momentarily out of all control.

  “My God, how stupid you are! How little you understand! With an out-and-out nymphomaniac like Eve—”

  “Nymphomaniac?” There was a dead silence as Brian interrupted. “Isn’t that a change from your tune last night? Isn’t it a considerable change from being the woman’s greatest friend and champion?”

  “I am her friend. I always have been. Eve was never, never like that in the old days before she lost her looks.” Paula flung back her head, hands clenched. “Did you ever notice that the truly beautiful women in this world, and often the ones who seem to put the most accent on sex, are the very ones who aren’t much interested in sex after all? They can’t be; they’re too vain; they’re interested only in themselves. Oh, God, what am I saying?”

  “Not much that’s relevant. Will you answer the question?”

  “What question?”

  “Why do you want to keep me away from the Cave of the Witches? And keep the police away too?”

  “I—”

  “Is it because I might ask questions? And the police certainly would ask questions? And discover Ferrier wasn’t anywhere near the place yesterday evening?”

  “That’s it, yes. But that’s only partly it. You don’t understand!”

  “Then tell me something else. I had intended to ask Hathaway, but you’ll do just as well. It’s been understood you were to have dinner with Hathaway yesterday evening, but somebody put off that engagement. You didn’t see Hathaway until you met him with me, in the foyer of the Hotel du Rhône. Isn’t that true?”

  “Of course it’s true. I don’t see what. …”

  “You will. Hathaway said he telephoned you at the hotel and cancelled the dinner-date. Did you actually speak to him, or did he only leave a message?”

  “He left a message. I wasn’t in my room. I was downstairs buying cigarettes.”

  “You weren’t in your room. Were you even at the hotel?”

  “At the …?”

  “Yes! When Desmond Ferrier can’t account for a blank of several hours yesterday evening, isn’t it because he was with you?”

  All the colour receded from Paula’s face, making her vivid eyes enormous. The door, two inches open behind her back, swayed in a gentle draught,

  “Mr. Innes, this is the most sickening and insufferable thing I ever heard! Do you accuse me of—of being concerned in poor Eve’s murder?”

 
“No,” roared Brian.

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “You’re a Thoroughly Nice Girl in capital letters. You’re whirling along in a rat-race of journalism when all you really want is a husband and a home.”

  Paula Catford went as white as though he had accused her of an act much worse than murder. She stood very straight, lips parted.

  “Your conscience has bothered you about Eve,” Brian said. “Very probably Ferrier is in love with you. Otherwise I can’t see him telling lies so gallantly about a mere episode in his amiable young life. If you don’t mention Audrey’s lies, I don’t mention yours or Ferrier’s. Now get away from that door. I’m going out to find him and do something about it if he’s been frightening Audrey.”

  “Oh, I’ll be quiet! Do you imagine that will help you?”

  “Why shouldn’t it?”

  “Listen!” And Paula held up her hand.

  Moving aside from the door, she pushed it wide open. Through the corridor, from beyond a door with a glass panel at the far end, rose the wiry hum of the lift ascending from the ground floor.

  “You’ve left it too late,” said Paula. “That’s the police.”

  One long step carried him into the passage. Beside the lift-door, a little to the right, he could see another door to the enclosed staircase. The lift, slow and asthmatic, would take thirty seconds to reach the sixth floor. He could be on his way down, completely unseen, long before then.

  Her next words, in a hurt and hating voice, briefly stopped him again.

  “If you think you’re going to hurt Desmond or make more trouble for him, I don’t think they’ll let you. It certainly won’t help when they arrest Audrey.”

  “Arrest Audrey? Are you crazy?”

  “Oh, I don’t think she did it! But Aubertin does. I can tell.”

  “Because you’ve been listening at doors again?”

  It was even more brutal than his last attack, but Paula did not flinch.

  “Yes, if you must know! Who’s had more experience with the ways the police question people in any country, you or I? Dr. Fell’s shielding Audrey too much. He’s given her an alibi; he says he was with her before breakfast this morning.”