Spinsters in Jeopardy. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ knew his little son was racked with an illogical and bottomless anxiety, an anxiety that vanished when the door opened and Troy came in.

      ‘Oh golly, Mum!’ Ricky said and his lip trembled.

      ‘Hallo, there,’ Troy said in the especially calm voice she kept for Ricky’s panics. She sat down beside him, putting her arm where he could lean back against it and looked at her husband.

      ‘I think that woman’s very ill,’ she said. ‘She looks frightful. She had what she thought was some kind of food poisoning this morning and dosed herself with castor-oil. And then, just now she had a violent pain, really awful, she says, in the appendix place and now she hasn’t any pain at all and looks ghastly. Wouldn’t that be a perforation, perhaps?’

      ‘Your guess is as good as mine, my love.’

      ‘Rory, she’s about fifty and she comes from the Bermudas and has no relations in the world and wears a string bag on her head and she’s never been abroad before and we can’t just let her be whisked on into the Italian Riviera with a perforated appendix if that’s what it is.’

      ‘Oh, damn!’

      ‘Well, can we? I said,’ Troy went on, looking sideways at her husband, ‘that you’d come and talk to her.’

      ‘Darling, what the hell can I do?’

      ‘You’re calming in a panic, isn’t he, Rick?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Ricky, again turning white. ‘I don’t suppose you’re both going away, are you, Mummy?’

      ‘You can come with us. You could look through the corridor window at the sea. It’s shiny with moonlight and Daddy and I will be just on the other side of the poor thing’s door. Her name’s Miss Truebody and she knows Daddy’s a policeman.’

      ‘Well, I must say …’ Alleyn began indignantly.

      ‘We’d better hurry, hadn’t we?’ Troy stood up holding Ricky’s hand. He clung to her like a limpet.

      At the far end of the corridor their own car attendant stood with two of his colleagues outside Miss Truebody’s door. They made dubious grimaces at one another and spoke in voices that were drowned by the racket of the train. When they saw Troy, they all took off their silver-braided caps and bowed to her. A doctor, they said, had been discovered in the troisième voiture and was now with the unfortunate lady. Perhaps Madame would join him. Their own attendant tapped on the door and with an ineffable smirk at Troy, opened it. ‘Madame!’ he invited.

      Troy went in and Ricky feverishly transferred his hold to Alleyn’s hand. Together, they looked out of the corridor window.

      The railway, on this part of the coast, followed an embankment a few feet above sea level and as Troy had said, the moon shone on the Mediterranean. A long cape ran out over the glossy water and near its tip a few points of yellow light showed in early-rising households. The stars were beginning to pale.

      ‘That’s Cap St Gilles,’ Alleyn said. ‘Lovely, isn’t it, Rick?’

      Ricky nodded. He had one ear tuned to his mother’s voice which could just be heard beyond Miss Truebody’s door.

      ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is lovely.’ Alleyn wondered if Ricky was really as pedantically-mannered a child as some of their friends seemed to think.

      ‘Aren’t we getting a bit near?’ Ricky asked. ‘Bettern’t Mummy come now?’

      ‘It’s all right. We’ve ten minutes yet and the train people know we’re getting off. I promise it’s all right. Here’s Mummy now.’

      She came out followed by a small bald gentleman with waxed moustaches, wearing striped professional trousers, patent leather boots and a frogged dressing-gown.

      ‘Your French is badly needed. This is the doctor,’ Troy said and haltingly introduced her husband.

      The doctor was formally enchanted. He said crisply that he had examined the patient who almost certainly suffered from a perforated appendix and should undoubtedly be operated upon as soon as possible. He regretted extremely that he himself had an urgent professional appointment in St Celeste and could not, therefore, accept responsibility. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to discharge Miss Truebody at Roqueville and send her back by the evening train to St Christophe where she could go to hospital. Of course, if there was a surgeon in Roqueville the operation might be performed there. In any case he would give Miss Truebody an injection of morphine. His shoulders rose. It was a position of extreme difficulty. They must hope, must they not, that there would be a medical man and suitable accommodation available at Roqueville? He believed he had understood Madame to say that she and Monsieur l’Inspecteur-en-Chef would be good enough to assist their compatriot.

      Monsieur l’Inspecteur-en-Chef glared at his wife and said they would, of course, be enchanted. Troy said in English that it had obviously comforted Miss Truebody and impressed the doctor to learn of her husband’s rank. The doctor bowed, delivered a few definitive compliments and lurching in a still dignified manner down the swinging corridor, made for his own carriage, followed by his own attendant.

      Troy said: ‘Come and speak to her, Rory. It’ll help.’

      ‘Daddy?’ Ricky said in a small voice.

      ‘We won’t be a minute,’ Troy and Alleyn answered together, and Alleyn added, ‘We know how it feels, Rick, but one has got to get used to these things.’ Ricky nodded and swallowed.

      Alleyn followed Troy into Miss Truebody’s compartment. ‘This is my husband, Miss Truebody,’ Troy said. ‘He’s had a word with the doctor and he’ll tell you all about it.’

      Miss Truebody lay on her back with her knees a little drawn up and her sick hands closed vice-like over the sheet. She had a rather blunt face that in health probably was rosy but now was ominously blotched and looked as if it had shrunk away from her nose. This effect was heightened by the circumstance of her having removed her teeth. There were beads of sweat along the margin of her grey hair and her upper lip and the ridges where her eyebrows would have been if she had possessed any; the face was singularly smooth and showed none of the minor blemishes characteristic of her age. Over her head she wore, as Troy had noticed, a sort of net bag made of pink string. She looked terrified. Something in her eyes reminded Alleyn of Ricky in one of his travel-panics.

      He told her, as reassuringly as might be, of the doctor’s pronouncement. Her expression did not change and he wondered if she had understood him. When he had finished she gave a little gasp and whispered indistinctly: Too awkward, so inconvenient. Disappointing.’ And her mottled hands clutched at the sheet.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Alleyn said, ‘don’t worry about anything. We’ll look after you.’

      Like a sick animal, she gave him a heart-rending look of gratitude and shut her eyes. For a moment Troy and Alleyn watched her being slightly but inexorably jolted by the train and then stole uneasily from the compartment. They found their son dithering with agitation in the corridor and the attendant bringing out the last of their luggage.

      Troy said hurriedly: ‘This is frightful. We can’t take the responsibility. Or must we?’

      ‘I’m afraid we must. There’s no time to do anything else. I’ve got a card of sorts up my sleeve in Roqueville. If it’s СКАЧАТЬ