In Spite of Thunder by John Dickson Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

brightness surrounded the too-yellow hair; then sincerity coloured her voice as she extended her hand. “It was a most unhappy occasion when we met last. I loathed troubling you. And let’s not talk about those old days, shall we? But I do hope you’re not going to say I poisoned anyone, are you?”
    Again Hathaway looked up.
    “Madam, why should I say that?”
    (“Steady!” thought Brian.)
    “Well, everyone else does.” Eve laughed. It was as though a wheel went round behind her eyes. “I—I came here tonight to find Desmond. It’s absurd, isn’t it, to be so fond of my own husband after all these years? It seems so horribly uncivilized. But there it is. Can you understand that, Paula?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    “That’s what I mean. And I do intend to be serious, Sir Gerald,” declared Eve, “as you will see very shortly. It’s only that I don’t want to interrupt any sort of conference, and I don’t seem to have met that gentleman there.”
    As she looked at Brian, her gaze slid over the sofa where the album had lain open. He saw with a shock that it was closed now; Paula must have closed it, though he could not remember seeing her do so. And Brian introduced himself.
    “I’m a friend of Audrey Page’s father, Mrs. Ferrier.”
    “Audrey? Ah, yes. I’d heard she was here. That doesn’t surprise me. But the rest of you …” Eve had a really magnetic smile. Everything else was subtly wrong: the colours of her clothes and make-up, the series of wrong contrasts, in a woman once noted for good taste. “Now I’ll be serious. I won’t ask you what you’re doing at this hotel. But I will ask you: are you ignoring me? Is everybody ignoring me? Have you decided you won’t come to the Villa Rosalind after all?”
    “Are you speaking to me, madam?” asked Hathaway.
    “If you please, yes.”
    “The question, Mrs. Ferrier, is whether you still want us there. Miss Catford is trying to help you. I am not.”
    “And why should you help me? I can’t expect it. But we want something from each other, don’t we?”
    “If you put it like that …!” And Hathaway lifted his shoulders.
    “I do. You want to play detective. I want these old rumours killed and killed forever. Killed!” said Eve, seeming to stare at the past. “I have had much trouble, you know. A new life can open for me, even a return to the stage and a triumphant one, once I’ve finished the book I’m writing now. It’s inexpressibly sweet to think of that. But I can’t do it if they still say I’m a murderess and half mad as well. Are the three of you staying at the Hotel du Rhône?”
    “Miss Catford and I are staying here, yes.”
    “Is there any reason why you should? Can’t you occupy the rooms ready and waiting for you at my villa? Now? This very night? That is, unless you’re afraid?”
    “Hardly afraid, dear Mrs. Ferrier.”
    Eve nodded. Lithely, with the flash of an ugly look, she sat down in the leather sofa beside the brief-case and the album.
    “This is yours, I imagine.” She picked up the brief-case, stamped with the letters G. H. “And this too.” She picked up the album and riffled through its pages. “For God’s sweet sake, my dear man,” she added in a startlingly different tone, “do you really think I drugged or poisoned Hector Matthews?”
    The words, though not loudly spoken, had a rasp which startled Eve herself. She sat up straight.
    “Sir Gerald, I beg your pardon. That was unforgivably crude of me. I am desperate, you see; this means my happiness. Do you think that?”
    “Yes. I do. But what makes you say I do?”
    “That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
    “Not at all obvious. No, no, no! Most people think you deliberately pushed him when he turned dizzy. Since you ask me the direct question, I give you the direct answer.”
    Eve closed her eyes.
    “You must have known that, Mrs. Ferrier. Your letters indicated you did. Where did you get this notion of drugging or poisoning? It only occurred to