Dr. Morelle at Midnight. Ernest Dudley

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СКАЧАТЬ THREE

      Laking dreaded it, that unpleasant queasy feeling in the pit of the stomach whenever the plane left the runway. He had flown often enough but it made no difference. Always that strange disembodied feeling as the aircraft lifted against the pull of gravity. He had to avert his eyes from the windows until the blurred sweep of the ground rushing past just below became a flat, unmoving map thousands of feet away.

      He had decided to get the Air France Riviera Express, from London Airport direct to Nice. He would be back in Monte Carlo soon after four that afternoon. He didn’t mind the actual flight. Air travel was quick, comfortable and there was no fuss. Once in the air there was hardly any sensation of flying at all. When the great triangle of runways receded and he could unfasten his seat belt and smoke, the tension and sickness vanished and he could relax.

      The faint hum of the four Rolls Royce Dart engines was hardly noticeable in the large pressurized cabin. It was hard to believe that this great turbo-prop monster, eighty-one feet long, its wingspan ninety-four feet, was cruising twenty-thousand feet up, flying towards France at three hundred and ten miles per hour. The smoothness of the flight, the attentive service of the stewards and hostess filled Laking with pleasure.

      It was one of his peculiarities that he must always understand the principles of any machine in whose care he had put himself. Cars, ships, aircraft, he had to know how they were driven. Although under their cowlings these aircraft engines appeared huge and complicated, he knew the principle on which they worked was one of the simplest, known and applied since earliest times.

      The familiar waterwheel, still seen in rural districts, was itself a turbine, by replacing its paddles with a double ring of high-speed steel blades, and the mill-stream by a powerful jet of gas produced by burning heavy fuel in compressed air, the modern turbine had evolved. The only difference in the latest turbines, Laking knew, was that they made use of gas expansion, giving them greater efficiency than the earlier ones, the compressed air being supplied by compressors driven by the turbine itself, and started up electrically.

      The cabin was spacious, elegantly upholstered in beige. There was a complete absence of noise and vibration. Laking lounged back in one of the forty-nine adjustable armchairs and waited for the attractive French hostess to bring his luncheon tray.

      Laking took a whisky and soda with his meal. He had little appetite for the appetizing concoction despite its traditional French delicacy. He picked at the food, envying the dark bearded Indian next to him who ate with noisy ravenous appetite.

      The passengers were a mixed bunch. The Indian spent the flight with his nose buried in law books. The obvious Californian businessman across the aisle spent most of the flight drinking champagne and chewing a fat cigar. At intervals he dictated to an ash-blonde secretary who lazily caressed the keys of a portable typewriter on the table fitted to the front of her seat. There was a family of six forward, holiday-bound, with four noisy young children the hostess did her best to amuse with an assortment of games. There was a man shuffling cards and laying them out for solitaire, game after game. Next to him his wife sat engrossed in a fashion magazine. But most of the passengers lay back, eyes closed, enjoying an after-lunch doze.

      Laking finished his whisky and squashed his cigarette into the ashtray. He leaned back, his mind jumping ahead to Monte Carlo. There would be no one at the airport to meet him. He didn’t expect anyone. Stacey had no interest in him. She’d be out somewhere, with friends. Or with Duke Fenton.

      Laking’s thoughts slipped into the old groove. Fenton was his editorial director. He had joined him as general editor soon after the company had been formed, and his hard work and efficiency had soon won him a directorship. Laking relied on him and over the years Fenton had become more than just a colleague, he had become a friend. Now, looking back, Laking realized Fenton had become too friendly. Especially with Stacey.

      Stacey had persuaded him to take the Villa des Fleurs again for the season. It had followed Fenton should occupy the small bachelor apartment nearby as he had done the year before. Sara Belling was there too, staying in the villa with Stacey and himself. Sara would always be there, the perfect secretary.

      It was as if Laking had transferred his business from London to flourish in the sun of the South. And it had flourished. His uncertainty, when Stacey had first mooted the idea, had quickly been dispelled. Business routine continued uninterrupted and the short air journeys that either he or Fenton had undertaken between London and Monte Carlo had been necessary only on rare occasions.

      The villa at Monte Carlo was the ideal setting for the drama he was planning.

      The drama of which his visit to Kirkland had been the first act.

      Laking was jerked out of his reverie. The hostess handed him the customs and police forms. To fill them in now, she said, saved time when they landed. Nice was now less than thirty minutes flying time away. Laking completed the forms and by the time the hostess had collected them the warning notice ‘Fasten Your Seat Belts’ flashed on the panel and they were descending towards the Côte d’Azur Airport.

      Laking passed through the French landing formalities in quick time. In less than half an hour he was on his way in a private hire car to Monte Carlo. He savoured the luxuriousness of the limousine. He appreciated warmth and luxury, always had done, ever since his first taste of expensive living. Ever since he had left his meagre existence, stepped into big business through that one stroke of good fortune. He had hoped never to look back, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Not quite. He frowned, and stared out of the car-window.

      Nothing could ever take away his memories of the Côte d’Azur. He knew the coast from Marseilles to the Italian frontier, the villages and towns of Provence, the land of olive trees. This whole stretch of the Mediterranean was as familiar to him as the streets of London.

      Here on the Côte d’Azur the sun shone all year, semitropical plants—palms, lemons, bananas, prickly pears—flourished in the warm, sea-scented breezes. Here life was full of carnival, battles of flowers, motor rallies, concours d’élégance followed each other in brilliant succession. On a hundred golden beaches brown-bodied men and women played around, film stars, celebrities, holiday-makers, from all over the world.

      Laking had travelled the coast road many times from Marseilles to Menton near the frontier. He had visited the Calanques of Cassis, the Baie des Anges, the Baie de la Napoule and the tiny coves of Le Trayas, cut in the red rock of the Esterel. He had wandered in the brightly-coloured ports of Villefranche and St. Tropez, frequented by artists. He knew too the fashionable resorts—Juan-les-Pins, Cannes itself, a town as elegant as the yachts that come from all over the world to shelter in its harbour.

      In those early seasons he and Stacey had driven to the flowering fields of Grasse. Stacey had collected samples of the perfumes made there. They had marvelled at the wild gorges of Le Cians and Dalius, and from a road cut out of the living rock they had looked out over the vast canyon of the Verdon. But most of all, from those first trips, he remembered Provence and long summer days full of the scent of thyme and lavender and the music of the cigales.

      Provence had been like a page from a history of art with its relics from former ages carefully preserved, some dating from Roman times. How much more memorable it had been with Stacey at his side. The arena, the Maison Carrée of Nimes, the Aqueduct of Pont du Gard, the triumphal arch and the Roman theatre of Orange, the antiques of St. Remy. The Roman remains at Aries, the theatre, the arena, the Alyscamps, and the church of St. Trophime whose gateway was a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture.

      Memories whirled in his brain, sun-filled, dazzling, all of them flavoured with the scent of Stacey’s hair, the brownness of her skin, her excited laugh. Meals in softly-lighted inns and restaurants, piquant and appetizing food gently seasoned with garlic, olive-oil СКАЧАТЬ