In Spite of Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page A

friend Gideon Fell. Fell? Bah! The man is no such great hand at solving murder mysteries. I will beat him yet.”
    “What’s Dr. Fell got to do with it? Would you mind explaining any of this hocus-pocus?”
    A distant church-clock sounded the quarter-hour past ten. The Hotel du Rhône, raising a vast elegance of chromium and glass on the Quai Turrettini above the Pont de la Tour de l’Ile, seemed as somnolent as its austere bar.
    “My dear fellow—!” began Hathaway.
    He took out a large watch and consulted it. He peered round the room, deserted except for these two and for a white-coated young barman drowsing against a wall of bright-labelled bottles.
    Indirect lighting lent a spectral air to Hathaway’s bald head and his close-cropped beard and moustache. His Guy-Fawkes hat, together with an old leather brief-case, lay beside him. Frowning, he stubbed out the cigar in an ashtray. Then Sir Gerald Hathaway—fashionable portrait-painter, ladies’ man, amateur criminologist—regarded Brian with an air in which amiable cynicism blended in a frantic preoccupation with his hobby.
    “My dear fellow, I apologize if I caused you embarrassment. Especially,” he added with a faintly malicious twinkle, “in the presence of Miss Audrey Page. But it’s your own fault.”
    “It is, eh?”
    “Yes, it is. You wouldn’t tell her not to visit this damned villa of Mrs. Ferrier’s. You were too proud to forbid her in so many words; you wouldn’t admit you were interested. If anything happens to her within the next week, it will be your responsibility.”
    Brian struck the table with his fist. The barman opened drowsy eyes but did not stir.
    “Listen to me!” said Hathaway, also striking the table. “We are dealing with a murder mystery far more curious than it appears to be. And with a woman far more clever than she appears to be.”
    “Eve Eden?”
    “I prefer to call her Mrs. Ferrier.”
    “Call her what you like. Have you made up your mind whether she did or didn’t kill Hector Matthews at Berchtesgaden?”
    “Oh, she killed him. But not in the way we thought.”
    “Not in the way we thought? If it was deliberate murder, she must have given him a shove or toppled him over in some way when he turned faint?”
    “No. She chucked him over, and yet she didn’t touch him.”
    “What the hell is all this about? And who’s talking like Gideon Fell now?”
    “Ah!” murmured Hathaway. “You’ll see. As for the reasons why I am here a day early, and staying at this particular hotel, and constructing (if you will pardon me?) a scheme on which I rather flatter myself …!”
    Once more Hathaway consulted his watch. Once more he looked towards the door leading to a foyer so large and lofty that voices were toned to murmurs there.
    “By the way,” he added abruptly. “You once told me you never met Mrs. Ferrier, or saw her except in films. Did you ever see her on the stage before she took up film work?”
    “No. Was she good on the stage?”
    “Oh, the lady was competent. Especially in emotional parts. That means nothing: every young hopeful at Rada wants a stab at Ibsen or Chekhov. If you go still further and cast any actress as a glamourous trollop with a hundred lovers and a misunderstood heart: cripes, how they all love it! And every woman in the audience, even the most respectable, sees herself as potentially the same character.”
    “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
    “I don’t say there’s anything wrong with it. I do say that Mrs. Ferrier, at heart, is a thoroughly respectable woman who nevertheless wouldn’t stick at murder to get what she wanted. And that’s the most dangerous kind of all.”
    “Look here, isn’t this a change of view since we talked about it last?”
    “Agreed. It is.” Hathaway brooded. “Just four weeks ago, out of the blue, she wrote me a letter care of the Savage Club. I didn’t bring the letter with me; one day it may be needed. But I can give you the exact terms of