Free He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr Page A

years ago after being invalided out very early in the war. He and Marion, in fact, were themselves an institution already.
    So he stood looking at Miles with interest from under the brim of a soft hat.
    â€˜Well?’ prompted Stephen.
    Opposite platform number eleven at Waterloo there is a restaurant, up two steep flights of stairs. Miles picked up his suitcase and led the way there. When they had installed themselves at a window table overlooking the station platform, in a big imitation-oak-panelled room only sparsely filled, Miles first ordered tea with care.
    â€˜There’s a woman named Fay Seton,’ he said. ‘Six years ago, in France, she was mixed up in a murder case. People accused her of some kind of unnamed bad conduct which set the whole district by the ears.’ He paused. ‘I’ve engaged her to come to Greywood and catalogue the books.’
    There was a long silence while Marion and Stephen looked at him. Again Stephen took the pipe out of his mouth.
    â€˜Why?’ he asked.
    â€˜I don’t know!’ Miles answered honestly. ‘I’d made up my mind to have absolutely nothing to do with it. I was going to tell her firmly that the post had been filled. I couldn’t sleep all last night for thinking about her face.’
    â€˜Last night, eh? When did you meet her?’
    â€˜This morning.’
    With great carefulness Stephen put down the pipe on the table between them. He pushed the bowl a fraction of an inch to the left, and then a fraction of an inch to the right, delicately.
    â€˜Look here, old man –’ he began.
    â€˜Oh, Miles,’ cried his sister, what is all this?’
    â€˜I’m trying to tell you!’ Miles brooded. ‘Fay Seton was trained as a librarian. That’s why both Barbara Morell and old What’s-his-name, at the Murder Club, both looked so strange when I mentioned the library and said I was looking for a librarian. But Barbara was even quicker-minded than the old professor. She guessed. What with the present terrific labour shortage, if I went to the agencies for a librarian and Fay Seton was in the market for a job, it was twenty to one Fay would be sent to me. Yes. Barbara guessed in advance.’
    And he drummed his fingers on the table.
    Stephen removed his soft hat, showing the pinkish bald head above an intent, worried-looking face set in an expression of affection and expostulation.
    â€˜Let’s get this straight,’ he suggested. ‘Yesterday morning, Friday morning, you came to London in search of a librarian –’
    â€˜Actually, Steve,’ Marion cut in, ‘he’d been invited to a dinner of something called the Murder Club.’
    â€˜That,’ said Miles, ‘was where I first heard about Fay Seton. I’m not crazy and this isn’t at all mysterious. Afterwards I met her …’
    Marion smiled.
    â€˜And she told you some heart-rending story?’ said Marion. ‘And your sympathies were roused as usual?’
    â€˜On the contrary, she doesn’t even know I’ve heard a word about her. We simply sat in the lounge at the Berkeley and talked.’
    â€˜I see, Miles. Is she young?’
    â€˜Fairly young, yes.’
    â€˜Good-looking?’
    â€˜In a certain way, yes. But that wasn’t what influenced me. It was –’
    â€˜Yes, Miles?’
    â€˜Just something about her!’ Miles gestured. ‘There isn’t time to tell you the whole story. The point is that I have engaged her and she’s travelling down with us by this afternoon’s train. I thought I’d better tell you.’
    Conscious of a certain relief, Miles sat back as the waitress came and clanked down tea-things on the table with a wrist-motion suggestive of someone throwing quoits. Outside, under the dusty windows beside which they sat, moved the endless sluggish knots of travellers in front of black white-numbered gates leading to the platforms.
    And