“I was going to say,” Miles answered, “by some sort of supernatural being that could float in the air.”
“How curious for you to use those words! How very interesting!”
“Would you mind if I interrupted for a moment?” asked Barbara, fiddling with the table cloth. “The main thing, after all, is about―is about Fay Seton. Think you said she had an appointment with Mr. Brooke for four o’clock. Did she keep that appointment at all?”
“She was, at least, not seen.”
“Did keep that appointment, Professor Rigaud?”
“She arrived there afterwards, mademoiselle. When it was all over.”
“Then what was she doing during that time?”
“Ah!” said Professor Rigaud, with such relish that both his auditors half dreaded what he might say. “Now we come to it!”
“Come to what?”
“The most fascinating part of the mystery. This puzzle of a man alone when he is stabbed”―Professor Rigaud puffed out his cheeks―it is interesting, yes. But to me the great interest of a case is not in material clues, like a bright little puzzle-box with all the pieces numbered and of a different colour. No! To me it lies in the human mind, the human behaviour: if you like, the human soul.” His voice sharpened. “Fay Seton, for example. Describe for me, if you can, her mind and soul.”
“It might help us,” Miles pointed out, “if we learned what she had been doing which upset people so much, and changed everybody’s feelings towards her. Forgive me, but―you do know what it was?”
“Yes.” The word was clipped off. “I know.”
“And where she was at the time of the murder,” continued Miles, with questions boiling inside him. “And what the police thought about her position in the affair. And what happened to her romance with Harry Brooke. And, in short, the whole end of the story!”
Professor Rigaud nodded.
“I will tell you,” he promised. “But first”―like a good connoisseur, tantalizingly, he beamed as he held them in suspense―we must have a glass of something to drink. My throat is as dry as sand. And you must drink too.” He raised his voice. “Waiter!”
After a pause he shouted again. The sound filled the room; it seemed to draw vibrations from the engraving of the skull hung over the mantelpiece, it made the candle-flames curl slowly; but there was no reply. Outside the windows the night was now pitch-black, gurgling as though from a waterspout.
“Ah, zut!” fussed Professor Rigaud, and began to look about for a bell.
“To tell you the truth,” ventured Barbara, “I’m rather surprised we haven’t been turned out of here long ago. The Murder Club seem to be very favored people. It must be nearly eleven o’clock.”
“It is nearly eleven o’clock,” fumed Professor Rigaud, consulting his watch. Then he bounced to his feet, “I beg of you, mademoiselle, that you will not disturb yourself! Or you, either, my friend: I will get the waiter.”
The double-doors to the outer room closed behind him again whisking the candle-flames. As Miles got up automatically to anticipate him. Barbara stretched out her hand and touched his arm. Her eyes, those friendly sympathetic grey eyes under the smooth forehead and the wings of ash-blonde hair, said silently but very clearly that she wanted to ask him a question in private.
Miles sat down again.
“Yes, Miss Morell?”
She withdrew her hand quickly. “I … I don't know how to begin, really.”
“Then suppose I begin?” said Miles, with that tolerant and crooked smiled which so much inspired confidence.
“How do you mean?”
“I don't want to pry into anything, Miss Morell. This is entirely between ourselves. But it has struck me, once or twice tonight, that you're far more interested in the specific case of Fay Seton than you are in the Murder Club.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Isn't it true? Professor Rigaud's noticed it too.”
“Yes. It's true.” She spoke after a hesitation, nodding vigorously and then turning her head away. “That's why I owe you an explanation. And I want to give you an explanation. But before I do”―she turned back to face him―may I ask you a horribly impertinent question? I 't want to pry either; really I don't; but may I ask?”
“Of course. What do you want to know?”
Barbara tapped the photograph of Fay Seton, lying between them beside the folded sheaf of manuscript.
“You're fascinated by that, aren't you?” she asked.
“Well―yes. I suppose I am.”
“You wonder,” said Barbara, “what it would be like to be in love with her.”
If her first remark had been a trifle disconcerting, the second took him completely aback.
“Are you setting up as a mind-reader, Miss Morell?”
“I'm sorry! But isn't it true?”
“No! Wait! Hold on! That's going a bit too far!”
the photograph had been having a hypnotic effect, he could not in honesty deny it. But that was curiosity, the lure of a puzzle. Miles had always been rather amused by those stories, usually romantic stories with a tragic ending, in which some poor devil falls in love with a woman's picture. Such things had actually happened in real life, of course; but it failed to lessen his disbelief. And, in any case, the question didn't arise here.
He could have laughed at Barbara for her seriousness.
“Anyway,” he countered, “why do you ask that?”
“Because of something you said earlier this evening. Please don't try to remember what it was!” Humour, a wryness about the mouth to contradict the smile in her eyes, showed in Barbara's face. “I'm probably only tired, and imagining things. Forget I said it! Only ...”
“You see, Miss Morell, I'm a historian.”
“Oh?” Her manner was quickly sympathetic.
Miles felt rather sheepish. “That's a highfalutin way of putting it, I'm afraid. But it does happen to be true, in however small a way. My work, the world I live in, is made up of people I never knew. Trying to visualize, trying to understand, a lot of men and women who were only heaps of dust before I was born. As for this Fay Seton ...”
“She is wonderfully attractive, isn't she?” Barbara indicated the photograph.
“Is she?” Miles said coolly. “It's not a bad piece of work, certainly. Coloured photographs are usually an abomination. Anyway,” fiercely he groped back to the subject, “this woman is no more real than Agnes Sorel or―or Pamela Hoyt. We don't know anything about her.” He paused, startled. “Come to think of it, we haven't even heard whether she's still alive.”
“No,” the girl agreed slowly. “No, we haven't even heard that.”
Barbara got up slowly, brushing her knuckles across the table as though throwing something away. She drew a deep breath.
“I can only ask you again,” she said, “please to forget everything I've just said. It was only a silly idea of mine; it couldn't possibly come to anything. What a queer evening this has been! Professor Rigaud does rather cast a spell, doesn't he? And, as far as that's concerned” – she spoke suddenly, twitching her head round – ”isn't Professor Rigaud being a long time in finding a waiter?”
“Professor Rigaud!” called Miles. He lifted up his voice powerfully, “Professor Rigaud!”
Again, as when the absent one had himself called for a waiter, only the rain gurgled and splashed in the darkness. There was no reply.
Chapter V
Miles rose to his feet and went over to the double-doors.
He threw them open, and looked in an outer room sombre and deserted. Bottles and glasses had been removed from the improvised bar; only one electric light was burning.