Читать книгу Ten Little Niggers / Десять негритят - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 11

A tall soldierly old man appeared at the exit from the platform. His grey hair was cut short and he had a neatly trimmed white moustache.

Vera came forward in a competent manner. She said:

“I am Mrs. Owen’s secretary. There is a car here waiting.” She added: “This is Mr. Lombard.”

The shrewd blue eyes of General Macarthur sized up Lombard.

“Good-looking fellow. Something just a little wrong about him…”

They got into the waiting taxi. They drove through the sleepy streets of little Oakbridge. Then they went down country lanes, steep, green and narrow.

General Macarthur said he lived in East Devon and this part of Devon was new to him.

Vera liked the scenery and said:

“It really is lovely here. The hills and the red earth and everything so green.”

Philip Lombard said critically:

“It’s a bit confined. I like open country myself. Where you can see what’s coming.”

General Macarthur said to him:

“You’ve seen a bit of the world, I imagine?”

Lombard shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve traveled about here and there, sir.”

He thought to himself: “He’ll ask me now if I was old enough to be in the War. These old boys always do.”

But General Macarthur said nothing about the War.