He Who Whispers Read Online Free PDF

back to a matter of definition. How do you mean, dangerous? So attractive that she … well, turned the head of every man she met?’
    â€˜No!’ said Professor Rigaud with emphasis.
    Again he chuckled.
    â€˜I admit, mark you,’ he hastened to add, ‘that with many men this might well be the case. Look at the photograph there! But it was not what I meant.’
    â€˜Then in what way dangerous?’ persisted Barbara Morell, a lustre of intentness, even slight anger, coming into her grey eyes. She shot out the next question as something like a challenge. ‘You mean – a criminal?’
    â€˜My dear young lady! No, no, no!’
    â€˜An adventuress, then?’
    Barbara struck her hand against the edge of the table.
    â€˜A trouble-maker of some kind, is that it?’ she cried. ‘Malicious? Or spiteful? Or tale-bearing?’
    â€˜I say to you,’ declared Professor Rigaud, ‘that Fay Seton was none of those things. Forgive me if I, the old cynic, insist that in her puritanical way she was altogether gentle and good-hearted.’
    â€˜Then what’s left?’
    â€˜What is left, mademoiselle, is the real answer to the mystery. The mystery of the unpleasant rumours that began to creep through Chartres and the surrounding country. The mystery of why our sober, conservative Mr Howard Brooke, her prospective father-in-law, cursed her aloud in a public place like the Crédit Lyonnais Bank …’
    Under her breath Barbara uttered a curious sound which was either incredulity or contempt, either disbelieving this or dismissing it as of no importance whatever. Professor Rigaud blinked at her.
    â€˜You doubt me, mademoiselle?’
    â€˜No! Of course not!’ Her colour went up. ‘What do I know about it?’
    â€˜And you, Mr Hammond: you say little?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Miles replied absently. ‘I was –’
    â€˜Looking at the photograph?’
    â€˜Yes. Looking at the photograph.’
    Professor Rigaud opened his eyes delightedly.
    â€˜You are impressed, eh?’
    â€˜There’s a kind of spell about it,’ said Miles, brushing his hand across his forehead. ‘The eyes there in the picture! And the way she’s got her head turned. Confound the photograph!’
    He, Miles Hammond, was a tired man only recently recovered from a very long illness. He wanted peace. He wanted to live in seclusion in the New Forest, among old books, with his sister to keep house for him until her marriage. He didn’t want to have his imagination stirred. Yet he sat staring at the photograph, staring at it under the candle-light until its subtle colours grew blurred, while Professor Rigaud went on.
    â€˜These rumours about Fay Seton …’
    â€˜What rumours?’ Barbara asked sharply.
    Blandly, Professor Rigaud ignored this.
    â€˜For myself, blind bat and owl that I am, I had heard nothing of them. Harry Brooke and Fay Seton became engaged to be married in the middle of July. Now I must tell you about the twelfth of August.
    â€˜On that day, which seemed to me like any other day, I am writing a critical article for the Revue des Deux Mondes . All morning I write in my pleasant hotel room, as I have been doing for nearly a week. But after lunch I step across the Place des Epars to get my hair cut. And while I am there, I think to myself, I will just go into the Crédit Lyonnais and cash a cheque before the bank closes.
    â€˜It was very warm. All morning the sky had been heavy and dark, with fits of vague prowling thunder and sometimes spatters of rain. But nothing more than a drizzle; no cloud-burst; nothing to let the heat out and give us peace. So I went into the Crédit Lyonnais. And the first person I saw, coming out of the manager’s office, was Mr Howard Brooke.
    â€˜Odd?
    â€˜Rather odd, yes! For I had imagined he would be at his office, like the conscientious fellow he was.
    â€˜Mr Brooke regarded me