In Spite of Thunder (The Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries, 20) by John Dickson Carr

Author:John Dickson Carr [Carr, John Dickson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480472693
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

XI

EIGHT O’CLOCK IN the evening, growing dark again.

And he had hoped to see Audrey hours before this.

Heedless of the wet road’s slipperiness after the rain, Brian sent his car bucketing down towards the outskirts of Geneva.

The greatest wish of those who spend a good part of their lives in travelling, he had often reflected, is to hang or shoot or otherwise exterminate all people occupying any kind of official position.

This, admittedly, was unfair. The officials couldn’t help it. And, since the purpose of so many governments nowadays is to make life as complicated and irritating as possible, he should be grateful for the Swiss method of letting you do exactly as you pleased so long as you didn’t interfere with anyone else.

Nothing could have been more polite or considerate than the police questioning. But nothing could have been more thorough, over nearly ten hours. What the other witnesses said Brian did not know. They were kept in separate rooms like separate compartments. The tireless Stephanie got these witnesses a meal at half-past one. The thunderstorm, breaking in a deluge of rain shortly after the arrival of the police, made a background in accord with Brian’s mood.

His sense of frustration, he knew, came from another source.

“You tried to be too clever,” he thought bitterly. “And, as usual, you cut your own throat.”

So far as he could tell, nobody doubted his story—or, rather, Dr. Fell’s story—that he and Audrey had been together when they saw Eve Ferrier fall from the balcony. Nobody expressed surprise or wrath at the statement that Audrey had been sent away from the villa because she was suffering from shock.

M. Aubertin, suavely tri-lingual in French, English (and German as well, he understood), had merely nodded.

“But that is only natural, Mr. Innes.”

“Don’t you want to question her?”

“Presently, it may be. We have fully enough to occupy us for the moment.”

“I’ve told you everything I know, and told it twice over. Can’t you let me get away from here now?”

“In good time, Mr. Innes. You will appreciate the necessity for thoroughness. Of course you wish to—er—reassure yourself about the young lady?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Where is she now?”

“I am not sure. She may be at any one of a number of places.”

“Well, it is simple. Telephone to whatever place or places you think she may be, and say you will be delayed.”

But that was precisely what he couldn’t do. First consideration: he did not dare risk speaking to Audrey until he had seen her alone and they could arrange to tell the same story; this invitation might be a gentle trap. Second difficulty: if she had received his message from Madame Duvallon, she wouldn’t answer the ’phone even if he rang.

All sorts of other uncomfortable possibilities had occurred to him; certain further words of Dr. Fell, just before the entrance of the police, churned uneasily in his head.

The necessity for seeing Audrey, which he hid behind a manner of a suavity as great as M. Aubertin’s, had grown to something like a mania by the time they released him.

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