In Spite of Thunder by John Dickson Carr

thought.
    “Where is this study?”
    “Upstairs, at the back of the villa.”
    “Dr. Fell, is there by any chance a balcony?”
    Carefully, with an intense and cross-eyed carefulness, Dr. Fell put down his stick on the table beside the brief-case and the album.
    “Attend to me!” he begged. “If you are thinking that history may repeat itself, put the notion out of your mind. It may be I have a glimmer of what Hathaway is driving at. Even in the unlikely event that he is right, there is no need to fear what happened before.”
    “ Is there a balcony?”
    “There is. There are three rooms upstairs at the back of the house, with a balcony running outside all three, and the study in the middle.”
    “Then I think I’d better go up there.”
    “Go up if you like. And I have made a fool of myself many times. But the balcony has no connection with this. The same thought had occurred to me; it must be rejected; it has no validity!”
    “Probably it hasn’t. All the same, I’m going up there.”
    “Oh, Lord! Oh, Bacchus! Oh, my ancient hat! ‘Tell all.’ Mrs. Ferrier hides herself away there; she will allow no one to enter. …”
    Brian did not hear the last of this. He walked with every appearance of casualness into the lower hall, not wishing to make a fool of himself. Then he began to run.
    There were sixteen steps, uncarpeted and painted brown, in the staircase along the left-hand wall. If he went up them two treads at a time, he made as little noise as possible. In the upstairs hall, where three closed doors faced him from a cross-passage through the width of the villa, his footsteps clacked so loudly on hardwood that he stopped.
    It was all so normal-looking!
    A vacuum-cleaner stood beside a linen-cupboard near the head of the stairs. A mop was there too. But it could do no harm if he knocked at the study-door. Brian ran at it, and lifted his hand to knock.
    “You shan’t have him,” said the voice of Eve Ferrier. “Not after all these years. You shan’t have him.”
    It was not loud, beyond that closed door, but it was not normal either.
    “ I never looked at him! ” That was Audrey’s voice. “ I never once thought of him! ”
    “ Do n’t lie to me. It was all in a diary. I saw it yesterday evening. You pretended one thing, and you were doing another. ”
    Brian seized the knob and wrenched it. But the door was locked or bolted on the inside. He shouted something, and never remembered what it was, just before he began to hammer his fist on the panel.
    There was no reply. Then footsteps began to retreat, as though towards a window.
    The realm of all nightmare, where dreams hold us helpless, and coalesced like a wall in front of Brian Innes. Twice more he banged his fist on the door, hearing the whispery voices continue inside. Next, looking left and right, he ran towards the door on the right.
    That was unlocked. He flung it open on a bedroom, with two full-length windows opening towards the back on the balcony he sought. Before five strides had carried him to the window nearest the study next door, he saw an open suitcase—only half unpacked, full of women’s clothes—lying on a chair near the foot of the bed.
    But this impression went past on a flash before the wet breeze swirled in his face, and he reached the window. Outside lay the balcony, very broad if not very sturdy, with its hand-rail and lathlike supports painted green. Wooden steps, from an opening in its floor, led down to a narrow terrace; and below that, beyond a stone wall, the ravine tumbled outwards in massed trees.
    Both Eve and Audrey were on that balcony. One of them did not stay there long.
    “Audrey!”
    They did not hear him. Both women had their backs turned to him, outlined against a vast dark sky. It was not as though Eve were attacking Audrey; it was as though Audrey were attacking Eve—if, in fact, any person touched her at all.
    Audrey was the nearer to him, one hand flung up as though for an invocation. Eve, in a