Читать книгу Ten Little Niggers / Десять негритят - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 13

Fred Narracott, looking at his passengers, thought to himself that this was a queer company. He’d expected that Mr. Owen’s guests would be all very rich and important-looking.

Quite different from Mr. Elmer Robson’s parties. Fred Narracott grinned faintly as he remembered the millionaire’s guests. That had been a party if you like – and the drink they’d got through!

This Mr. Owen must be a very different sort of gentleman. It was strange, thought Fred, that Mr. Owen had never been down here yet. Everything had been ordered and paid for by that Mr. Morris. The papers said there was some mystery about Owen. Mr. Narracott agreed with them.

Perhaps it was indeed Miss Gabrielle Turl who had bought the island. But he rejected that theory as he looked at his passengers. They could hardly have anything to do with a film star.

He sized them up objectively.

One spinster – the sour kind – he knew them well enough. She was a dragon, he could bet. Old military gentleman. Nice-looking young lady – but the ordinary kind, not glamourous – no Hollywood touch about her. That bluff cheery gent – he wasn’t a real gentleman. Retired tradesman, that’s what he is, thought Fred Narracott. The other gentleman, the thin hungry looking gentleman with the quick eyes, he was a queer one.

No, there was only one satisfactory passenger in the boat. The last gentleman, the one who had arrived in the car (and what a car!).

He was the right kind. Born to money, he was. If the party had been all like him… he’d understand it…

Queer business – the whole thing was queer – very queer.