Wait Until Midnight Read Free Page B

reluctant to concede him the ground. "As a matter of fact, I do not believe that it is possible to communicate with spirits"
    "I am relieved to hear that. It renews my initial impression of your intelligence."
    She glared at him. "May I remind you, sir, that the field of psychical research is expanding rapidly. Lately it has be-gun to encompass a wide variety of phenomena, not just the summoning of spirits. While I do not believe that mediums can communicate with ghosts and phantoms, I am not at all prepared to dismiss other types of psychical powers out of hand."
    His green eyes tightened ever so slightly at the corners, sharpening his gaze in a dangerous manner. "If you do not believe that mediums can contact the spirit world, why did you attend the séance at Elizabeth Delmont's house last night?"
    No doubt about it, he was most definitely conducting an interrogation. She glanced again at the bellpull.
    "There is no need to call your housekeeper to rescue you," he said dryly. "I mean you no harm. But I do mean to get some answers"
    She frowned. "You sound like a policeman, Mr. Grove." "Calm yourself, Mrs. Fordyce. I promise you that I have no connection to the police."
    "Then why in heaven's name are you here, sir? What do you want?"
    "Information," he said simply. "Why did you attend the séance?"
    He was quite relentless, she thought.
    "I told you, I have been conducting research into psychical phenomena," she said. "Your opinions to the contrary, it is considered a legitimate field of inquiry."
    He shook his head in disgust. "Parlor tricks and games. Nothing more"
    It was past time to ask a few questions of her own, she decided. She clasped her hands together on top of her desk and assumed what she hoped was a firm, authoritative manner.
    "I am very sorry to learn that Mrs. Delmont was murdered," she said evenly. "But I'm afraid that I fail to comprehend why you are interested in the circumstances of her death. Indeed, if you and Mrs. Delmont were not, ah, intimately acquainted, why did you go to her house at two o'clock in the morning?"
    "Suffice it to say that I had my reasons for calling on Elizabeth Delmont at that hour and that those reasons were extremely urgent. Now that she is dead, I am left with no choice but to discover the identity of her killer."
    She was stunned. "You intend to hunt him down your-self?"
    "Yes"
    "Surely that is a job for the police, sir."
    He shrugged. "They will make their inquiries, naturally, but I very much doubt that they will find the villain."
    She unlocked her hands and seized her pen again. "This is very interesting, Mr. Grove. Indeed, it is riveting." She wrote Determined and relentless on the sheet of paper. "Let me see if I have got the facts in the correct order. You are conducting an inquiry into Mrs. Delmont's death, and you came here to ask me if I had any information concerning her murder."
    He watched her swiftly moving pen. "That certainly sums up the situation."
    Talk about a Startling Incident, she thought. Incidents did not come much more startling than this one.
    "I shall be delighted to tell you everything I can remember, sir, if you will first explain your interest in the affair."
    He studied her as though she were an unusual biological specimen that had turned up unexpectedly and was proving difficult to identify. The tall clock ticked in the silence.
    After a long moment, he appeared to come to a conclusion.
    "Very well," he said, "I will answer some of your questions. But in return I must insist that you keep what I am about to tell you in strictest confidence."
    "Yes, of course" She jotted the word Secretive down on the paper.
    He was out of the chair before she realized he had even moved.
    "What on earth?" Startled by the suddenness of his actions, she gasped and dropped her pen.
    He crossed the space between them in two strides, reached out and plucked the sheet of paper off the desk.
    So much for his apparent weariness, she thought. And to think she had been