Читать книгу Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Mary Westmacott - Страница 11

Sir Stafford Nye returned to his flat. A large woman bounced out of the small kitchen with welcoming words.

‘See you got back all right, sir. Those nasty planes. You never know, do you?’

‘Quite true, Mrs Worrit,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Two hours late, the plane was.’

‘Same as cars, aren’t they,’ said Mrs Worrit. ‘I mean, you never know, do you, what’s going to go wrong with them. Only it’s more worrying, so to speak, being up in the air, isn’t it? Can’t just draw up to the kerb, not the same way, can you? I mean, there you are. I wouldn’t go by one myself, not if it was ever so.’ She went on, ‘I’ve ordered in a few things. I hope that’s all right. Eggs, butter, coffee, tea—’ She ran off the words with the loquacity of a Near Eastern guide showing a Pharaoh’s palace. ‘There,’ said Mrs Worrit, pausing to take breath, ‘I think that’s all as you’re likely to want. I’ve ordered the French mustard.’

‘Not Dijon, is it? They always try and give you Dijon.’

‘I don’t know who he was, but it’s Esther Dragon, the one you like, isn’t it?’

‘Quite right,’ said Sir Stafford, ‘you’re a wonder.’

Mrs Worrit looked pleased. She retired into the kitchen again, as Sir Stafford Nye put his hand on his bedroom door handle preparatory to going into the bedroom.

‘All right to give your clothes to the gentleman what called for them, I suppose, sir? You hadn’t said or left word or anything like that.’

‘What clothes?’ said Sir Stafford Nye, pausing.

‘Two suits, it was, the gentleman said as called for them. Twiss and Bonywork it was, think that’s the same name as called before. We’d had a bit of a dispute with the White Swan laundry if I remember rightly.’

‘Two suits?’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Which suits?’

‘Well, there was the one you travelled home in, sir. I made out that would be one of them. I wasn’t quite so sure about the other, but there was the blue pinstripe that you didn’t leave no orders about when you went away. It could do with cleaning, and there was a repair wanted doing to the right-hand cuff, but I didn’t like to take it on myself while you were away. I never likes to do that,’ said Mrs Worrit with an air of palpable virtue.

‘So the chap, whoever he was, took those suits away?’

‘I hope I didn’t do wrong, sir.’ Mrs Worrit became worried.

‘I don’t mind the blue pinstripe. I daresay it’s all for the best. The suit I came home in, well—’

‘It’s a bit thin, that suit, sir, for this time of year, you know, sir. All right for those parts as you’ve been in where it’s hot. And it could do with a clean. He said as you’d rung up about them. That’s what the gentleman said as called for them.’

‘Did he go into my room and pick them out himself?’

‘Yes, sir. I thought that was best.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘Yes, very interesting.’

He went into his bedroom and looked round it. It was neat and tidy. The bed was made, the hand of Mrs Worrit was apparent, his electic razor was on charge, the things on the dressing-table were neatly arranged.

He went to the wardrobe and looked inside. He looked in the drawers of the tallboy that stood against the wall near the window. It was all quite tidy. It was tidier indeed than it should have been. He had done a little unpacking last night and what little he had done had been of a cursory nature. He had thrown underclothing and various odds and ends in the appropriate drawer but he had not arranged them neatly. He would have done that himself either today or tomorrow. He would not have expected Mrs Worrit to do it for him. He expected her merely to keep things as she found them. Then, when he came back from abroad, there would be a time for rearrangements and readjustments because of climate and other matters. So someone had looked round here, someone had taken out drawers, looked through them quickly, hurriedly, had replaced things, partly because of his hurry, more tidily and neatly than he should have done. A quick careful job and he had gone away with two suits and a plausible explanation. One suit obviously worn by Sir Stafford when travelling and a suit of thin material which might have been one taken abroad and brought home. So why?

‘Because,’ said Sir Stafford thoughtfully, to himself, ‘because somebody was looking for something. But what? And who? And also perhaps why?’ Yes, it was interesting.

He sat down in a chair and thought about it. Presently his eyes strayed to the table by the bed on which sat, rather pertly, a small furry panda. It started a train of thought. He went to the telephone and rang a number.

‘That you, Aunt Matilda?’ he said. ‘Stafford here.’

‘Ah, my dear boy, so you’re back. I’m so glad. I read in the paper they’d got cholera in Malaya yesterday, at least I think it was Malaya. I always get so mixed up with those places. I hope you’re coming to see me soon? Don’t pretend you’re busy. You can’t be busy all the time. One really only accepts that sort of thing from tycoons, people in industry, you know, in the middle of mergers and takeovers. I never know what it all really means. It used to mean doing your work properly but now it means things all tied up with atom bombs and factories in concrete,’ said Aunt Matilda, rather wildly. ‘And those terrible computers that get all one’s figures wrong, to say nothing of making them the wrong shape. Really, they have made life so difficult for us nowadays. You wouldn’t believe the things they’ve done to my bank account. And to my postal address too. Well, I suppose I’ve lived too long.’

‘Don’t you believe it! All right if I come down next week?’

‘Come down tomorrow if you like. I’ve got the vicar coming to dinner, but I can easily put him off.’

‘Oh, look here, no need to do that.’

‘Yes there is, every need. He’s a most irritating man and he wants a new organ too. This one does quite well as it is. I mean the trouble is with the organist, really, not the organ. An absolutely abominable musician. The vicar’s sorry for him because he lost his mother whom he was very fond of. But really, being fond of your mother doesn’t make you play the organ any better, does it? I mean, one has to look at things as they are.’

‘Quite right. It will have to be next week—I’ve got a few things to see to. How’s Sybil?’

‘Dear child! Very naughty but such fun.’

‘I brought her home a woolly panda,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.

‘Well, that was very nice of you, dear.’

‘I hope she’ll like it,’ said Sir Stafford, catching the panda’s eye and feeling slightly nervous.

‘Well, at any rate, she’s got very good manners,’ said Aunt Matilda, which seemed a somewhat doubtful answer, the meaning of which Sir Stafford did not quite appreciate.

Aunt Matilda suggested likely trains for next week with the warning that they very often did not run, or changed their plans, and also commanded that he should bring her down a Camembert cheese and half a Stilton.

‘Impossible to get anything down here now. Our own grocer—such a nice man, so thoughtful and such good taste in what we all liked—turned suddenly into a supermarket, six times the size, all rebuilt, baskets and wire trays to carry round and try to fill up with things you don’t want and mothers always losing their babies, and crying and having hysterics. Most exhausting. Well, I’ll be expecting you, dear boy.’ She rang off.

The telephone rang again at once.

‘Hullo? Stafford? Eric Pugh here. Heard you were back from Malaya—what about dining tonight?’

‘Like to very much.’

‘Good—Limpits Club—eight-fifteen?’

Mrs Worrit panted into the room as Sir Stafford replaced the receiver.

‘A gentleman downstairs wanting to see you, sir,’ she said. ‘At least I mean, I suppose he’s that. Anyway he said he was sure you wouldn’t mind.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Horsham, sir, like the place on the way to Brighton.’

‘Horsham.’ Sir Stafford Nye was a little surprised.

He went out of his bedroom, down a half flight of stairs that led to the big sitting-room on the lower floor. Mrs Worrit had made no mistake. Horsham it was, looking as he had looked half an hour ago, stalwart, trustworthy, cleft chin, rubicund cheeks, bushy grey moustache and a general air of imperturbability.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said agreeably, rising to his feet.

‘Hope I don’t mind what?’ said Sir Stafford Nye.

‘Seeing me again so soon. We met in the passage outside Mr Gordon Chetwynd’s door—if you remember?’

‘No objections at all,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.

He pushed a cigarette-box along the table.

‘Sit down. Something forgotten, something left unsaid?’

‘Very nice man, Mr Chetwynd,’ said Horsham. ‘We’ve got him quietened down, I think. He and Colonel Munro. They’re a bit upset about it all, you know. About you, I mean.’

‘Really?’

Sir Stafford Nye sat down too. He smiled, he smoked, and he looked thoughtfully at Henry Horsham. ‘And where do we go from here?’ he asked.

‘I was just wondering if I might ask, without undue curiosity, where you’re going from here?’

‘Delighted to tell you,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘I’m going to stay with an aunt of mine, Lady Matilda Cleckheaton. I’ll give you the address if you like.’

‘I know it,’ said Henry Horsham. ‘Well, I expect that’s a very good idea. She’ll be glad to see you’ve come home safely all right. Might have been a near thing, mightn’t it?’

‘Is that what Colonel Munro thinks and Mr Chetwynd?’

‘Well, you know what it is, sir,’ said Horsham. ‘You know well enough. They’re always in a state, gentlemen in that department. They’re not sure whether they trust you or not.’

‘Trust me?’ said Sir Stafford Nye in an offended voice. ‘What do you mean by that, Mr Horsham?’

Mr Horsham was not taken aback. He merely grinned.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a reputation for not taking things seriously.’

‘Oh. I thought you meant I was a fellow traveller or a convert to the wrong side. Something of that kind.’

‘Oh no, sir, they just don’t think you’re serious. They think you like having a bit of a joke now and again.’

‘One cannot go entirely through life taking oneself and other people seriously,’ said Sir Stafford Nye, disapprovingly.

‘No. But you took a pretty good risk, as I’ve said before, didn’t you?’

‘I wonder if I know in the least what you are talking about.’

‘I’ll tell you. Things go wrong, sir, sometimes, and they don’t always go wrong because people have made them go wrong. What you might call the Almighty takes a hand, or the other gentleman—the one with the tail, I mean.’

Sir Stafford Nye was slightly diverted.

‘Are you referring to fog at Geneva?’ he said.

‘Exactly, sir. There was fog at Geneva and that upset people’s plans. Somebody was in a nasty hole.’

‘Tell me all about it,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘I really would like to know.’

‘Well, a passenger was missing when that plane of yours left Frankfurt yesterday. You’d drunk your beer and you were sitting in a corner snoring nicely and comfortably by yourself. One passenger didn’t report and they called her and they called her again. In the end, presumably, the plane left without her.’

‘Ah. And what had happened to her?’

‘It would be interesting to know. In any case, your passport arrived at Heathrow even if you didn’t.’

‘And where is it now? Am I supposed to have got it?’

‘No. I don’t think so. That would be rather too quick work. Good reliable stuff, that dope. Just right, if I may say so. It put you out and it didn’t produce any particularly bad effects.’

‘It gave me a very nasty hangover,’ said Sir Stafford.

‘Ah well, you can’t avoid that. Not in the circumstances.’

‘What would have happened,’ Sir Stafford asked, ‘since you seem to know all about everything, if I had refused to accept the proposition that may—I will only say may—have been put up to me?’

‘It’s quite possible that it would have been curtains for Mary Ann.’

‘Mary Ann? Who’s Mary Ann?’

‘Miss Daphne Theodofanous.’

‘That’s the name I do seem to have heard—being summoned as a missing traveller?’

‘Yes, that’s the name she was travelling under. We call her Mary Ann.’

‘Who is she—just as a matter of interest?’

‘In her own line she’s more or less the tops.’

‘And what is her line? Is she ours or is she theirs, if you know who “theirs” is? I must say I find a little difficulty myself when making my mind up about that.’

‘Yes, it’s not so easy, is it? What with the Chinese and the Russkies and the rather queer crowd that’s behind all the student troubles and the New Mafia and the rather odd lot in South America. And the nice little nest of financiers who seem to have got something funny up their sleeves. Yes, it’s not easy to say.’

‘Mary Ann,’ said Sir Stafford Nye thoughtfully. ‘It seems a curious name to have for her if her real one is Daphne Theodofanous.’

‘Well, her mother’s Greek, her father was an Englishman, and her grandfather was an Austrian subject.’

‘What would have happened if I hadn’t made her a—loan of a certain garment?’

‘She might have been killed.’

‘Come, come. Not really?’

‘We’re worried about the airport at Heathrow. Things have happened there lately, things that need a bit of explaining. If the plane had gone via Geneva as planned, it would have been all right. She’d have had full protection all arranged. But this other way—there wouldn’t have been time to arrange anything and you don’t know who’s who always, nowadays. Everyone’s playing a double game or a treble or a quadruple one.’

‘You alarm me,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘But she’s all right, is she? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘I hope she’s all right. We haven’t heard anything to the contrary.’

‘If it’s any help to you,’ said Sir Stafford Nye, ‘somebody called here this morning while I was out talking to my little pals in Whitehall. He represented that I telephoned a firm of cleaners and he removed the suit that I wore yesterday, and also another suit. Of course it may have been merely that he took a fancy to the other suit, or he may have made a practice of collecting various gentlemen’s suitings who have recently returned from abroad. Or—well, perhaps you’ve got an “or” to add?’

‘He might have been looking for something.’

‘Yes, I think he was. Somebody’s been looking for something. All very nice and tidily arranged again. Not the way I left it. All right, he was looking for something. What was he looking for?’

‘I’m not sure myself,’ said Horsham, slowly. ‘I wish I was. There’s something going on—somewhere. There are bits of it sticking out, you know, like a badly done up parcel. You get a peep here and a peep there. One moment you think it’s going on at the Bayreuth Festival and the next minute you think it’s tucking out of a South American estancia and then you get a bit of a lead in the USA. There’s a lot of nasty business going on in different places, working up to something. Maybe politics, maybe something quite different from politics. It’s probably money.’ He added: ‘You know Mr Robinson, don’t you? Or rather Mr Robinson knows you, I think he said.’

‘Robinson?’ Sir Stafford Nye considered. ‘Robinson. Nice English name.’ He looked across to Horsham. ‘Large, yellow face?’ he said. ‘Fat? Finger in financial pies generally?’ He asked: ‘Is he, too, on the side of the angels—is that what you’re telling me?’

‘I don’t know about angels,’ said Henry Horsham. ‘He’s pulled us out of a hole in this country more than once. People like Mr Chetwynd don’t go for him much. Think he’s too expensive, I suppose. Inclined to be a mean man, Mr Chetwynd. A great one for making enemies in the wrong place.’

‘One used to say “Poor but honest”,’ said Sir Stafford Nye thoughtfully. ‘I take it that you would put it differently. You would describe our Mr Robinson as expensive but honest. Or shall we put it, honest but expensive.’ He sighed. ‘I wish you could tell me what all this is about,’ he said plaintively. ‘Here I seem to be mixed up in something and no idea what it is.’ He looked at Henry Horsham hopefully, but Horsham shook his head.

‘None of us knows. Not exactly,’ he said.

‘What am I supposed to have got hidden here that someone comes fiddling and looking for?’

‘Frankly, I haven’t the least idea, Sir Stafford.’

‘Well, that’s a pity because I haven’t either.’

‘As far as you know you haven’t got anything. Nobody gave you anything to keep, to take anywhere, to look after?’

‘Nothing whatsoever. If you mean Mary Ann, she said she wanted her life saved, that’s all.’

‘And unless there’s a paragraph in the evening papers, you have saved her life.’

‘It seems rather the end of the chapter, doesn’t it? A pity. My curiosity is rising. I find I want to know very much what’s going to happen next. All you people seem very pessimistic.’

‘Frankly, we are. Things are going badly in this country. Can you wonder?’

‘I know what you mean. I sometimes wonder myself—’