Free In Spite of Thunder by John Dickson Carr Page B

infuriates you, doesn’t he?”
    “I never said—”
    “ I say it, though. And yet you don’t mind Phil. You like Phil. Shall I tell you why?”
    Brian seized the ashtray, but put it down again.
    “Phil’s a darling,” Audrey continued passionately. “He’s terribly good-looking; he’s really well-meaning and good-natured; and yet, according to your standards, he’s a bit of a fool. You don’t mind that. But Mr. Ferrier is clever; and clever men irritate you because you’re clever yourself.—Don’t you dare hit me!”
    “I wasn’t going to hit you. We weren’t discussing the shortcomings of my character.”
    “No; it seems we were discussing the shortcomings of mine. All right! You turned up at the Metropole Hotel, and told me about Eve being accused of murder at Berchtesgaden. Then I heard about Mr. Ferrier’s ‘joke,’ if it is a joke, about Eve wanting to poison him. At dinner …”
    “Go on!”
    “At dinner,” and there were tears in Audrey’s eyes, “Phil told me about an unexpected guest who’d got to their house at noon today. Phil didn’t know much about him. But I’d heard of him. His name’s Dr. Fell.”
    “Then maybe we’re reaching a point of good sense at last. You saw Dr. Fell, didn’t you?”
    “Saw him? How in heaven’s name could I see him?”
    “Well, he’s upstairs now. He was at the table next to ours. I rather think he’s been watching you.”
    There was a pause.
    “You don’t mean a terribly and incredibly large man with a mop of hair over one eye? Who looks so absent-minded he doesn’t even seem to know where he is? That’s not Dr. Fell?”
    “That’s the man.”
    “But—!”
    “He really is absent-minded, Audrey. You may have heard of the telegram to his wife: ‘Am at Market Harborough; where ought I to be?’ Unlike Gerald Hathaway, who never does anything by accident, Gideon Fell seldom does anything by design. On the other hand, finding him in a night-club is a little too unbelievable unless someone begged him to look you over.”
    It was as though the sheer unfairness of all created things took Audrey by the throat.
    “But why? I—I haven’t got anything to do with this awful business, whatever it is!”
    “No; you haven’t. And nobody is going to say you have. That’s why you’re flying back to London tomorrow.” Brian stopped, glancing to the right. “Listen!”
    Audrey began to speak, but thought better of it.
    Roaring waves of applause front upstairs, rising and then dying away to silence, suggested that the jungle number had ended. This rather sinister ground-floor bar, with its framed photographs round the walk, was equally silent.
    From beyond the archway, in the direction of the stairs leading up, issued sounds as though a well-grown elephant were trying to descend with the aid of a crutch-handled stick. Next they heard the unmistakable voice of Desmond Ferrier, notable for its jocularity and power as well as its clarity of diction.
    “It wouldn’t be chivalrous, Doctor, to say my dear wife has a slate loose. No!”
    “Harrumph? Hah?”
    “However, I tell you straight we’re getting towards very dangerous ground.” The voice broke off. “Damn it, man, can’t you look where you’re going? You haven’t got the figure for negotiating stairs at night-clubs.”
    “Sir,” intoned the wheezy voice of Dr. Fell, “I have not even got the figure for night-clubs. Especially since I don’t know why I am here.”
    “You’re obliging an old friend.”
    “In what particular way? If your son and Miss Page are engaged to be married—”
    Desmond Ferrier spoke with mocking emphasis, like Mephistopheles.
    “Ah, but we don’t know they’re engaged. A fairly close study of Miss Page’s letters to my son, gained without his knowledge, leads me to believe they soon will be. Anyway, I hope they are.”
    “Why so?”
    “Because it will prevent something unpleasant,” replied Desmond Ferrier. “It will prevent my dear wife from