He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr Read Free Book Online

I noted this not from any police sense, but because I wondered whether Fay Seton had kept her appointment.
    â€˜I ran over to Mr Brooke, and raised him up to a sitting position. He smiled at me and tried to speak, but all he could get out was, “Bad show.” Harry joined me among the smears of blood, though Harry was not much help. He said, “Dad, who did this?” but the old man was past articulation. He died in his son’s arms a few minutes later, clinging to Harry as though he himself were the child.’
    Here Professor Rigaud paused his narrative.
    Looking rather guilty, he lowered his head and glowered down at the dinner-table, his thick hands spread out on either side of it. There was a long silence until he shook himself, impatiently.
    With extraordinary intensity he added:
    â€˜Remark well, please, what I tell you now!
    â€˜We know that Mr Howard Brooke was unhurt, in the best of health, when I left him alone on top of the tower at ten minutes to four o’clock.
    â€˜Following that, the person who murdered him must have visited him on top of the tower. This person, when his back was turned, must have drawn the sword-cane from its sheath and run him through the body. Indeed, the police discovered that several fragments of crumbling rock had been detached from one of the broken battlements on the river-side, as though someone’s fingers had torn them loose in climbing up there. And this must have occurred between ten minutes to four and five minutes past four, when the two children discovered him in a dying condition.
    â€˜Good! Excellent! Established!’
    Professor Rigaud hitched his chair forward.
    â€˜Yet the evidence shows conclusively,’ he said, ‘that during this time not a living soul came near him.’

CHAPTER 4
    â€˜Y OU hear what I say?’ insisted Rigaud, snapping his fingers rapidly in the air to attract attention.
    Whereupon Miles Hammond woke up.
    To any person of imagination, he thought, this narrative of the stout little professor – its sounds and scents and rounded visual detail – had the reality of the living present. Momentarily Miles forgot that he was sitting in an upper room at Beltring’s Restaurant, beside candles burning low and windows opening on Romilly Street. Momentarily he lived amid the sounds and scents and visual outlines in that story, so that the whisper of the rain in Romilly Street became the rain over Henri Quatre’s tower.
    He found himself emotionally stirred up, worrying and fretting and taking sides. He liked this Mr Howard Brooke, liked him and respected and sympathized with him, as though the man had been a personal friend. Whoever had killed the old boy …
    And all this time, even more disturbingly, the enigmatic eyes of Fay Seton were looking back at him from the tinted photograph now lying on the table.
    â€˜I beg your pardon,’ said Miles, rousing himself with a start at the snapping of Professor Rigaud’s fingers. ‘Er – would you mind repeating that last sentence?’
    Professor Rigaud uttered his sardonic chuckle.
    â€˜With pleasure,’ he replied politely. ‘I said that the evidence showed not a living soul had come near Mr Brooke during those fatal fifteen minutes.’
    â€˜Had come near him?’
    â€˜Or could have come near him. He was utterly alone on top of the tower.’
    Miles sat up straight.
    â€˜Let’s get this clear!’ he said. ‘The man was stabbed?’
    â€˜He was stabbed,’ assented Professor Rigaud. ‘I am in the proud position of being able to show you, now, the weapon with which the crime was committed.’
    With modest deprecation he reached out to touch the thick cane of light yellowish wood, which throughout the dinner had never left his side and which was now propped against the edge of the table.
    â€˜That,’ cried Barbara Morell, ‘is –?’
    â€˜Yes. This belonged to Mr Brooke. I