He Who Whispers (8 page)

‘Did the lady leave her name?'

‘Yes, sir. Miss Fay Seton.'

O
N
the following afternoon, Saturday, the second of June, Miles reached Waterloo Station at four o'clock.

Waterloo, its curving acre of iron-girdered roof still darkened over except where a few patches of glass remained after the shake of bombs, had got over most of the Saturday rush to Bournemouth. But it still rang with a woman's spirited voice over a loud-speaker, telling people what queues to join. (If this voice ever begins to say something you want to hear, it is instantly drowned out by a hiss of steam or the thudding chest-notes of an engine.) Streams of travellers, mainly in khaki against civilian drabness, wound back among the benches behind the bookstall and, to the ladylike annoyance of the loudspeaker, got mixed up in each other's queues.

Miles Hammond was not amused. As he put down his suitcase and waited under the clock, he was almost blind to everything about him.

What the devil, he said to himself,
had
he done?

What would Marion say? What would Steve say?

Yet if anybody on this earth represented sanity, it was his sister and her fiancé. He was heartened to see them a few minutes later, Marion laden with parcels and Steve with a pipe in his mouth.

Marion Hammond, six or seven years younger than Miles, was a sturdy, nice-looking girl with black hair like her brother but a practicality that he perhaps lacked. She was very fond of Miles and tirelessly humoured him; because she really did believe, though she never said so, that he was not mentally grown up. She was proud, of course, of a brother who could write such learned books, though Marion confessed she didn't understand such things herself: the point was that books had no relation to serious affairs in life.

And, as Miles sometimes had to admit to himself, perhaps she was right.

So she came hurrying along under the echoing roof of Waterloo, well dressed even in this year because of new tricks with old clothes, her hazel eyes at ease with life under their dark straight brows, and intrigued – even pleased – by a new vagary of Miles's nature.

‘Honestly, Miles!' said his sister. ‘Look at the clock! It's only a few minutes past four!'

‘I know that.'

‘But the train doesn't go until half-past
five
, dear. Even if we've got to be here early to have a prayer of getting a seat, why must you make us get here as early as this?' Then her sisterly eye caught the expression on his face, and she broke off. ‘Miles! What's wrong? Are you ill?'

‘No, no, no!'

‘Then what is it?'

‘I want to talk to both of you,' said Miles. ‘Come with me.'

Stephen Curtis took the pipe out of his mouth. ‘Ho?' he observed.

Stephen's age might have been in the late thirties. He was almost completely bald – a sore subject with him – though personable-enough looking and with much stolid charm. His fair moustache gave him a vaguely R.A.F. appearance, though in fact he worked at the Ministry of Information and Strongly resented jokes about this institution. He had met Marion there two years ago after being invalided out very early in the war. He and Marion, in fact, were themselves an institution already.

So he stood looking at Miles with interest from under the brim of a soft hat.

‘Well?' prompted Stephen.

Opposite platform number eleven at Waterloo there is a restaurant, up two steep flights of stairs. Miles picked up his suitcase and led the way there. When they had installed themselves at a window table overlooking the station platform, in a big imitation-oak-panelled room only sparsely filled, Miles first ordered tea with care.

‘There's a woman named Fay Seton,' he said. ‘Six years ago, in France, she was mixed up in a murder case. People accused her of some kind of unnamed bad conduct which set the whole district by the ears.' He paused. ‘I've engaged her to come to Greywood and catalogue the books.'

There was a long silence while Marion and Stephen looked at him. Again Stephen took the pipe out of his mouth.

‘Why?' he asked.

‘I don't know!' Miles answered honestly. ‘I'd made up my mind to have absolutely nothing to do with it. I was going to tell her firmly that the post had been filled. I couldn't sleep all last night for thinking about her face.'

‘Last night, eh? When did you meet her?'

‘This morning.'

With great carefulness Stephen put down the pipe on the table between them. He pushed the bowl a fraction of an inch to the left, and then a fraction of an inch to the right, delicately.

‘Look here, old man –' he began.

‘Oh, Miles,' cried his sister, what
is
all this?'

‘I'm trying to tell you!' Miles brooded. ‘Fay Seton was trained as a librarian. That's why both Barbara Morell and old What's-his-name, at the Murder Club, both looked so strange when I mentioned the library and said I was looking for a librarian. But Barbara was even quicker-minded than the old professor.
She
guessed. What with the present terrific labour shortage, if I went to the agencies for a librarian and Fay Seton was in the market for a job, it was twenty to one Fay would be sent to me. Yes. Barbara guessed in advance.'

And he drummed his fingers on the table.

Stephen removed his soft hat, showing the pinkish bald head above an intent, worried-looking face set in an expression of affection and expostulation.

‘Let's get this straight,' he suggested. ‘Yesterday morning, Friday morning, you came to London in search of a librarian –'

‘Actually, Steve,' Marion cut in, ‘he'd been invited to a dinner of something called the Murder Club.'

‘That,' said Miles, ‘was where I first heard about Fay Seton. I'm not crazy and this isn't at all mysterious. Afterwards I met her …'

Marion smiled.

‘And she told you some heart-rending story?' said Marion. ‘And your sympathies were roused as usual?'

‘On the contrary, she doesn't even know I've heard a word about her. We simply sat in the lounge at the Berkeley and talked.'

‘I see, Miles. Is she young?'

‘Fairly young, yes.'

‘Good-looking?'

‘In a certain way, yes. But that wasn't what influenced me. It was –'

‘Yes, Miles?'

‘Just something about her!' Miles gestured. ‘There isn't time to tell you the whole story. The point is that I
have
engaged her and she's travelling down with us by this afternoon's train. I thought I'd better tell you.'

Conscious of a certain relief, Miles sat back as the waitress came and clanked down tea-things on the table with a wrist-motion suggestive of someone throwing quoits. Outside, under the dusty windows beside which they sat, moved the endless sluggish knots of travellers in front of black white-numbered gates leading to the platforms.

And it suddenly occurred to Miles, as he watched his two companions, that history was repeating itself. There could be no persons more conventional, better representing the traditions of home life, than Marion Hammond and Stephen Curtis. Exactly as Fay Seton had been introduced into the Brooke family six years ago, she would now enter another such household.

History repeating itself. Yes.

Marion and Stephen exchanged a glance. Marion laughed.

‘Well, I don't know,' she observed, in the musing tone of a woman not altogether displeased. ‘It might be rather fun, in a way.'

‘
Fun
?' exclaimed Stephen.

‘Did you tell her, Miles, to be sure to bring her ration-book?'

‘No,' His tone was bitter. ‘I'm afraid that detail escaped me.'

‘Never mind, dear. We can always …' Abruptly Marion sat up, a flash of consternation in her hazel eyes under the sensible straight brows. ‘Miles! Wait! This woman didn't
poison
anybody?'

‘My dear Marion,' said Stephen, ‘will you please tell me what difference it makes whether she poisoned anybody or shot anybody or beat in some old man's head with a poker? The point is –'

‘Just a minute,' interposed Miles quietly. He tried to be very quiet, very measured, and to control the thumping of his pulses. ‘I didn't say this girl was a murderess. On the contrary, if I have any judgement of human character, she certainly isn't anything of the kind.'

‘Yes, dear,' Marion said indulgently, and leaned across the tea-service to pat his hand. ‘I'm sure you're
quite
convinced of that.'

‘God damn it, Marion, will you stop misjudging my motives in this thing?'

‘Miles! Please!' Marion clucked her tongue, more from force of habit than anything else. ‘We're in a public place.'

‘Yes,' agreed Stephen. ‘Better lower your voice, old boy.'

‘All right, all right! Only …'

‘Here!' soothed Marion, and poured tea with deftness. ‘Take this, and try one of the cakes. There! Isn't that better? This interesting lady of yours, Miles: how old did you say she was?'

‘In her early thirties, I should think.'

‘And going out as a librarian? How is it the Labour Exchange hasn't got her?'

‘She's only just been repatriated from France.'

‘From France? Really? I wonder if she's brought over any French perfume with her?'

‘Come to think of it,' said Miles, who in fact could remember it quite well, ‘she
was
wearing some kind of perfume this morning. I happened to notice.'

‘We want to hear all about her past history, Miles. There's plenty of time, and we can save an extra cup of tea for her in case she turns up soon. It
wasn't
poison? You're sure of that? Steve, darling! – you're not having any tea!'

‘
Listen
!' said Stephen, at last in the authoritative voice of one who calls for the floor.

Picking up his pipe from the table, he twisted at it and thrust it bowl-upwards into his breast-pocket.

‘What I can't understand,' he complained, ‘is how all this came about. Do they keep murderers at the Murder Club, or what? All right, Miles! Don't get on your high horse! I like to get my facts in order, that's all. How long will it take Miss What-is-it to put the books in order? A week or so?'

Miles grinned at him.

‘Properly to catalogue that library, Steve, with all the cross-referencing of the old books, will take between two and three months.'

Even Marion looked startled.

‘Well,' murmured Stephen, after a pause, ‘Miles will always do exactly what he wants to do. So that's all right. But I can't go back to Greywood with you this evening …'

‘You can't go back this evening?' cried Marion.

‘My darling,' said Steve, ‘I kept trying to tell you in the taxi – only you haven't the gift of worshipful silence – that there's a crisis on again at the office. It's only until to-morrow morning.' He hesitated. ‘I suppose it's all right to send you two down there alone with this interesting female?'

There was a brief silence.

Then Marion chortled with mirth.

‘Steve! You
are
an idiot!'

‘Am I? Yes. I suppose I am.'

‘What can Fay Seton do to us?'

‘Not being acquainted with the lady, I can't say. Nothing, actually.' Stephen smoothed at his cropped moustache. ‘It's only –'

‘Drink up your tea, Steve, and don't be so old-fashioned.
I
shall be glad of her help about the house. When Miles said he was going to employ a librarian I rather imagined an old man with a long white beard. What's more, I shall put her in my room, and that will give me an excuse to move into that glorious ground-floor room even if it does still smell of paint. It's tiresome about the Ministry of Information; but I don't think the woman will frighten us to death in one night even if you're not there. What train are you taking to-morrow morning?'

‘Nine-thirty. And mind you don't mess about with that kitchen boiler unless I'm there to help. Let it
alone
, do you hear?'

‘I'm a dutiful bride-to-be, Steve.'

‘Dutiful my foot,' said Stephen, without stress or resentment; he simply stated a fact. At the same time, obviously soothed and shaken back to normal by this talk, he dismissed the subject of Fay Seton. ‘By George, Miles, you must take
me
to a meeting of this Murder Club one day! What do they do there?'

‘It's a dinner club.'

‘You mean you pretend the salt is poison? That sort of thing? And score a point if you can shove it into somebody's coffee without being detected? All right, old man: don't be offended! I must be pushing off now.'

‘Steve!' Marion spoke in a voice whose inflexion her brother knew only too well. ‘I forgot something. May I have a word with you? You
will
excuse us for a moment, Miles!'

Talking about him, eh?

Miles glowered at the table, trying to pretend he was unconscious of this, as Marion moved with Stephen towards the door. Marion was speaking in an animated undertone, Stephen shrugging his shoulders and smiling as he put on his hat. Miles took a drink of tea that had begun to grow cold.

He had an uncomfortable suspicion that he was somehow making a fool of himself, certainly that he was losing his sense of humour. But why? The true answer to that occurred to him a moment later. It was because he wondered whether he might not be loosing in his own household certain forces over which he had no control.

A cash-register rang: outside the windows rose the chug of a train; the burring voice of the loud-speaker recalled him to Waterloo Station. Miles told himself that this fleeting idea – the momentary intense chill which touched his heart – was all nonsense. He repeated it, summoning up a laugh, and felt his spirits improved when Marion returned.

‘Sorry if I sounded bad-tempered, Marion.'