Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh
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Название: Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent
Автор: Ngaio Marsh
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Классическая проза
isbn: 9780007531417
isbn:
‘I thought I noticed openings at the sides.’
‘Well – yes. But with the struggle that would go on –’
‘Perhaps,’ Alleyn said, ‘the victim didn’t struggle.’
The door opened and Trixie staggered in with two great buckets of coal.
‘Axcuse me, sir,’ she said. ‘You-all must be starved with cold. Boy’s never handy when wanted.’
Ralph had made a movement towards her as if to take her load, but had checked awkwardly.
Alleyn said: ‘That’s much too heavy for you. Give them to me.’
‘Let be, sir,’ she said, ‘no need.’
She was too quick for him. She set one bucket on the hearth and, with a sturdy economy of movement, shot half the contents of the other on the fire. The knot of reddish hair shone on the nape of her neck. Alleyn was reminded of a Brueghel peasant. She straightened herself easily and turned. Her face, blunt and acquiescent, held, he thought, its own secrets and, in its mode, was attractive.
She glanced at Ralph and her mouth widened.
‘You don’t look too clever yourself, then, Mr Ralph,’ she said. ‘Last night’s ghastly business has overset us all, I reckon.’
‘I’m all right,’ Ralph muttered.
‘Will there be anything, sir?’ Trixie asked Alleyn pleasantly.
‘Nothing at the moment, thank you. Later on in the day some time, when you’re not too busy, I might ask for two words with you.’
‘Just ax,’ she said. ‘I’m willing if wanted.’
She smiled quite broadly at Ralph Stayne. ‘Bean’t I, Mr Ralph?’ she asked placidly and went away, swinging her empty bucket.
‘Oh, God!’ Ralph burst out, and, before any of them could speak, he was gone, slamming the door behind him.
‘Shall I?’ Fox said and got to his feet.
‘Let him be.’
They heard an outer door slam.
‘Well!’ Dr Otterly exclaimed with mild concern, ‘I must say I’d never thought of that!’
‘And nor, you may depend upon it,’ Alleyn said, ‘has Camilla.’
When afternoon closing-time came, Trixie pulled down the bar shutters and locked them. Simon Begg went into the Private. There was a telephone in the passage outside the Private and he had put a call through to his bookmaker. He wanted, if he could, to get the results of the 1.30 at Sandown. Teutonic Dancer was a rank outsider. He’d backed it both ways for a great deal more than he could afford to lose and had already begun to feel that if he did lose, it would be in some vague way Mrs Bünz’s fault. This was both ungracious and illogical.
For many reasons, Mrs Bünz was the last person he wanted to see and for an equal number of contradictory ones she was the first. And there she was, the picture of uncertainty and alarm, huddled, snuffling, over the parlour fire with her dreadful cold and her eternal notebooks.
She had bought a car from Simon, she might be his inspiration in a smashing win. One way and another, they had done business together. He produced a wan echo of his usual manner.
‘Hallo –’llo! And how’s Mrs B today?’ asked Simon.
‘Unwell. I have caught a severe cold in the head. Also, I have received a great shawk. Last night in the pawk was a terrible, terrible shawk.’
‘You can say that again,’ he agreed glumly, and applied himself to the Sporting News.
Suddenly they both said together: ‘As a matter of fact –’ and stopped, astonished and disconcerted.
‘Ladies first,’ said Simon.
‘Thank you. I was about to say that, as a matter of fact, I would suggest that our little transaction – ach! How shall I say it? Should remain, perhaps –‘
‘Confidential?’ he ventured eagerly.
‘That is the word for which I sought. Confidential.’
‘I’m all for it, Mrs B. I was going to make the same suggestion myself. Suits me.’
‘I am immensely relieved. Immensely. I thank you, Wing-Commander. I trust, at the same time – you do not think – it would be so shawkink – if –’
‘Eh?’ He looked up from his paper to stare at her. ‘What’s that? No, no, no, Mrs B. Not to worry. Not a chance. The idea’s laughable.’
‘To me it is not amusink but I am glad you find it so,’ Mrs Bünz said stuffily. ‘You read something of interest, perhaps, in your newspaper?’
‘I’m waiting. Teutonic Dancer. Get me? The 1.30?’
Mrs Bünz shuddered.
‘Oh, well!’ he said. ‘There you are. I follow the form as a general thing. Don’t go much for gimmicks. Still! Talk about a coincidence! You couldn’t go past it really, could you?’ He raised an admonitory finger. The telephone had begun to ring in the passage. ‘My call,’ he said. ‘This is it. Keep your fingers crossed, Mrs B.’
He darted out of the room.
Mrs Bünz, left alone, breathed uncomfortably through her mouth, blew her nose and clocked her tongue against her palate. ‘Dar,’ she breathed.
Fox came down the passage past Simon, who was saying: ‘Hold the line, please, miss, for Pete’s sake. Hold the line,’ and entered the parlour.
‘Mrs Burns?’ he asked.
Mrs Bünz, though she eyed him with evident misgivings, rallied sufficiently to correct him: ‘Eü, eü, eü,’ she demonstrated windingly through her cold. ‘Bünz.’
‘Now, that’s very interesting,’ Fox said, beaming at her. ‘That’s a noise, if you will excuse me referring to it as such, that we don’t make use of in English, do we? Would it be the same, now, as the sound in the French “eu”?’ He arranged his sedate mouth in an agonized pout. ‘Deux diseuses,’ said Mr Fox by way of illustration. ‘Not that I got beyond a very rough approximation, I’m afraid.’
‘It СКАЧАТЬ