Spinsters in Jeopardy. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ Baradi smiled at her. ‘You must not trouble yourself about anything,’ they heard him say. He had a padded voice. ‘We are going to make everything much more comfortable for you, isn’t it? You must not be frightened of my dark face, I assure you I am quite a good doctor.’

      Miss Truebody said: ‘Please excuse me. Not at all. Thank you.’

      ‘Now, without moving you, if I may just – that will do very nicely. You must tell me if I hurt you.’ A pause. Cicadas had broken out in a chittering so high-pitched that it shrilled almost above the limit of human hearing. The driver moved away tactfully. Miss Truebody moaned a little. Dr Baradi straightened up, walked to the edge of the platform and waited there for Troy and Alleyn. ‘It is a perforated appendix undoubtedly,’ he said. ‘She is very ill. I should tell you that I am the guest of Mr Oberon, who places a room at our disposal. We have an improvised stretcher in readiness.’ He turned towards the passage-way: ‘And here it comes!’ he said looking at Troy with an air of joyousness which she felt to be entirely out of place.

      Two men walked out of the shadowed way on to the platform carrying between them a gaily striped object, evidently part of a garden seat. Both the men wore aprons. ‘The gardener,’ Dr Baradi explained, ‘and one of the indoor servants, strong fellows both and accustomed to the exigencies of our entrance. She has been given morphine, I think.’

      ‘Yes,’Alleyn said. ‘Dr Claudel gave it. He has sent you an adequate amount of something called, I think, pentothal. He was taking a supply of it to a brother-medico, an anaesthetist, in St Céleste and said that you would probably need some and that the local chemist would not be likely to have it.’

      ‘I am obliged to him. I have already telephoned to the pharmacist in Roqueville who can supply ether. Fortunately he lives above his establishment. He is sending it up here by car. It is fortunate also that I have my instruments with me.’ He beamed and glittered at Troy. ‘And now, I think …’

      He spoke in French to the two men, directing them to stand near the car. For the first time apparently he noticed the sleeping Ricky and leant over the door to look at him.

      ‘Enchanting,’ he murmured and his teeth flashed at Troy. ‘Our household is also still asleep,’ he said, ‘but I have Mr Oberon’s warmest invitation that you, Madame, and the small one join us for petit-déjeuner. As you know, your husband is to assist me. There will be a little delay before we are ready and coffee is prepared.’

      He stood over Troy. He was really extremely large: his size and his padded voice and his smell, which was compounded of hair-lotion, scent and something that reminded her of the impure land-breeze from an eastern port, all flowed over her.

      She moved back and said quickly: ‘It’s very nice of you but I think Ricky and I must find our hotel.’

      Alleyn said: Thank you so much, Dr Baradi. It’s extremely kind of Mr Oberon and I hope I shall have a chance to thank him for all of us. What with one thing and another, we’ve had an exhausting journey and I think my wife and Ricky are in rather desperate need of a bath and a rest. The man will drive them down to the hotel and come back for me.’

      Dr Baradi bowed, took off his hat and would have possibly kissed Troy’s hand again if Alleyn had not somehow been in the way.

      ‘In that case,’ Dr Baradi said, ‘we must not insist.’

      He opened the door of the car. ‘And now, dear lady,’ he said to Miss Truebody, ‘we make a little journey, isn’t it? Don’t move. There is no need.’

      With great dexterity and no apparent expenditure of energy he lifted her from the car and laid her on the improvised stretcher. The sun beat down on her glistening face. Her eyes were open, her lips drawn back a little from her gums. She said: ‘But where is … You’re not taking me away from …? I don’t know her name.’

      Troy went to her. ‘Here I am, Miss Truebody,’ she said. ‘I’ll come and see you quite soon. I promise.’

      ‘But I don’t know where I’m going. It’s so unsuitable … Unseemly really … Somehow with another lady … English … I don’t know what they’ll do to me … I’m afraid I’m nervous … I had hoped …’

      Her jaw trembled. She made a thin shrill sound, shocking in its nakedness. ‘No,’ she stammered, ‘no … no … no.’ Her arm shot out and her hand closed on Troy’s skirt. The two bearers staggered a little and looked agitatedly at Dr Baradi.

      ‘She should not be upset,’ he murmured to Troy. ‘It is most undesirable. Perhaps, for a little while, you’ll be kind …’

      ‘But of course,’ Troy said, and in answer to a look from her husband. ‘Of course, Rory, I must.’

      And she bent over Miss Truebody and told her she wouldn’t go away. She felt as though she herself was trapped in the kind of dream that, without being a positive nightmare, threatens to become one. Baradi released Miss Truebody’s hand and as he did so, his own brushed against Troy’s skirt.

      ‘You’re so kind,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Mr Allen will bring the little boy. It is not well for such tender ones to sleep overlong in the sun on the Côte d’Azur.’

      Without a word Alleyn lifted Ricky out of the car. Ricky made a small questioning sound, stirred and slept again.

      The men walked off with the stretcher. Dr Baradi followed them. Troy, Alleyn and Ricky brought up the rear.

      In this order the odd little procession moved out of the glare into the shadowed passage that was the entrance to the Château de la Chèvre d’Argent.

      The driver watched them go, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle and an expression of concern darkening his eyes. Then he drove the car into the shade of the hill and composed himself for a long wait.

       CHAPTER 2

       Operation Truebody

      At first their eyes were sun-dazzled so that they could scarcely see their way. Dr Baradi paused to guide them. Alleyn, encumbered with Ricky and groping up a number of wide, shallow and irregular steps, was aware of Baradi’s hand piloting Troy by the elbow. The blotches of nonexistent light that danced across their vision faded and they saw that they were in a sort of hewn passageway between walls that were incorporated in rock, separated by outcrops of stone and pierced by stairways, windows and occasional doors. At intervals they went through double archways supporting buildings that straddled the passage and darkened it. They passed an open doorway and saw into a cave-like room where an old woman sat among shelves filled with small gaily-painted figures. As Troy passed, the woman smiled at her and gestured invitingly, holding up a little clay goat.

      Dr Baradi was telling them about the Chèvre d’Argent.

      ‘It is a fortress built originally by the Saracens. One might almost say it was sculptured out of the mountain, isn’t it? The Normans stormed it on several occasions. There are legends of atrocities and so on. The fortress is, in effect, a village since the many caves beneath and around it have been shaped into dwellings and house a number of peasants, some dependent on the château and some, like the woman you have noticed, upon their own industry. The château itself is most interesting, indeed unique. СКАЧАТЬ