“And afterwards?”
“Well! Desmond Ferrier’s admission that his son always preferred to have dinner at the Globe Restaurant or the Hotel du Rhône was confirmed by a ’phone-call to the dining-room at the latter place. Eve Ferrier had asked for Philip there: though Philip, on Thursday night, actually took Miss Page to the Richemond. The discovery of Philip’s diary was a clincher.
“Consequently, when Aubertin and I drove to Geneva with Paula Catford, we encouraged Philip to accompany us. Aubertin wanted to have him followed from that time.”
“Followed?”
“Of course. If we could prevent it, there must be no more murder-attempts.”
Again memory opened its vistas to Brian.
“You had Philip followed from the time you and Aubertin entered the block of flats where I live? Isn’t that so? When the policeman reported, ‘Mr. Director, the signal has been given,’ did that mean the shadow was ready to take over from there?”
“It did. Philip, already in none too pleasant a mood either towards you or towards the young lady who was frankly staying at your flat, went with us when we took the lift to the flat. Neither you nor Miss Page was there, admittedly. But the front door was wide open, as you know. Our party separated afterwards; and Philip, who had walked smack into some revelations that upset him still worse …”
“Revelations? What revelations?”
“Have you forgotten the sheet torn from the note-pad? The paper you lost?”
Brian said nothing.
“The address of the night-club,” Dr. Fell explained patiently, “brought out from pencil-tracings in Audrey Page’s handwriting, was inscribed on that paper. You couldn’t find it next day; Philip had picked it up in your flat. Also in her handwriting, scrawled blatantly in lipstick across a mirror in your bedroom, was a message beginning, ‘I love you too—’”
Dr. Fell paused, blinking over his eyeglasses.
“And that,” Brian asked, “was what sent him to the Cave of the Witches?”
“Oh, ah. After he had first taken a taxi back to the villa, to procure a convenient automatic pistol and a convenient mask he could slip on in the dark. This over-reserved young man had gone berserk; his fine plan was in ruins; a brilliant and brutal murder had been committed for nothing; and somebody must pay for it. He had quite literally a shot at making you both pay. Unfortunately, the police-tail spotted nothing wrong at the Cave of the Witches; as you yourself said, nobody spotted anything wrong. And, when Aubertin and I heard of this murder-attempt next day, Aubertin was already prepared to close in. He dared not wait.
“Thus we come to the last scene of the last act.
“I was ordered to (harrumph) discuss the evidence in the study, while Aubertin kept Philip outside in a position to listen. But, by thunder, I insisted the boy’s father shouldn’t be there to watch his son’s arrest! With cross-purposes still working—”
“Desmond Ferrier returned to the villa?”
“He did. Amid many oaths he was detained in another room, where he could neither see nor hear. Oaths continued to shower from Aubertin when another unexpected guest turned up. Philip’s arrest could not have been exactly welcome to Miss Page either. Unfortunately, when she went to the airport for the not-very-sinister purpose of picking up her luggage, one of Aubertin’s men thought she was trying to escape. He detained her and in triumph sent her to the villa, where she must be kept out of the way until the curtain was down.
There was a long silence.
“As a last word, my dear sir,” and Dr. Fell blinked at Hathaway, “as a last word, I will give you a piece of advice against the time you are next tempted to try your hand at solving a problem in murder.”
“Indeed?”
“Desmond Ferrier, by getting me to the villa before anything had happened, hoped my presence would stop any games his son might have in mind. He shouted to the world I was there, as he told Innes. It had no effect at all. Philip, though not officially an actor, had more stage-blood in his veins than his step-mother and fully as much as his father. Take warning, Sir Gerald: as Philip said himself, it is not easy to cope with stage-people.”
Hathaway, putting down his cigar, put all irascibility into a few words.
“I am no longer interested in crime,” he said.
“Oh, ah! But if you should be—?”
“Why do you limit it, Dr. Fell? Why do you confine it to a noble profession like the stage? It is not easy to cope with people: full stop. By God, I have learned my lesson in that! It is not easy to cope with people.”
* There is now.—J. D. G.
About the Author
John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) was one of the most popular authors of Golden Age British-style detective novels. Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a US congressman, Carr graduated from Haverford College in 1929. Soon thereafter, he moved to England where he married an Englishwoman and began his mystery-writing career. In 1948, he returned to the US as an internationally known author. Carr received the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and was one of the few Americans ever admitted into the prestigious, but almost exclusively British, Detection Club.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1960 by John Dickson Carr
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-7239-6
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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THE DR. GIDEON FELL
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In Spite of Thunder Page 23
