Читать книгу Ten Little Niggers / Десять негритят - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 3

Vera Claythorne, in a third-class carriage with five other travellers in it, leaned back and closed her eyes. It was very hot in the train. It would be nice to get to the sea! She thought she was lucky to get a secretarial post during her holiday. When you wanted a holiday post, it nearly always meant looking after a crowd of children – secretarial holiday posts were much more difficult to get. Even the agency hadn’t had much hope.

And then the letter had come. It was:

“Your name has been given to me by the Skilled Women’s Agency together with their recommendation. I agree to pay you the salary you ask and hope you will take up your duties on August 8th. The train is the 12:40 from Paddington and you will be met at Oakbridge station. I enclose five-pound notes for expenses.

Yours truly,

Una Nancy Owen.”

And the stamped address was the Nigger Island, Sticklehaven, Devon…

Nigger Island! The papers have been full of all sorts of hints and interesting rumours about it lately! Probably that was mostly untrue. But the house had certainly been built by a millionaire and was said to be absolutely the last word in luxury.

Vera Claythorne felt very tired after a hard term as a games mistress[4] in a third-class school. She thought to herself – “If only I could get a job at some decent school.”

But then she thought that she was lucky to have even that. With a heavy heart she thought: “People don’t like a Coroner’s[5] Inquest, even if the Coroner did acquit me of all blame!”

The Coroner had even praised her for her courage, she remembered. And Mrs. Hamilton had been kindness itself to her – only Hugo – (but she wouldn’t think of Hugo!)

Suddenly, though it was very hot in the carriage, she shivered and wished she wasn’t going to the sea. A picture rose clearly before her mind. Cyril’s head, bobbing up and down, swimming to the rock. Up and down – up and down. And herself, swimming in easy expert strokes after him – but knowing, only too well, that she wouldn’t be in time.

The sea – warm mornings spent lying out on the sands – Hugo – Hugo who had said he loved her.

She must not think of Hugo.

She opened her eyes and looked at the man opposite her. A tall man with a brown face, light eyes set rather close together and an arrogant almost cruel mouth.

She thought to herself:

“I bet he’s been to some interesting parts of the world and seen some interesting things.”