Читать книгу Ten Little Niggers / Десять негритят - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 7

Dr. Armstrong was driving his car across Salisbury Plain. He was very tired. Success had its punishment. He remembered the time when he had sat in his consulting room in Harley Street[9], correctly dressed, surrounded with the most up-to-date appliances and the most luxurious furniture and waited – waited through the empty days for his venture to succeed or fail.

Well, it had succeeded! He’d been lucky! Lucky and competent of course. He was a good man at his job – but that wasn’t enough for success. You had to have luck as well. And he’d had it! An accurate diagnosis, a couple of grateful women patients – women with money and position – and word had got about. And now Dr. Armstrong was definitely a success. His days were full. He had little leisure. Therefore, on this August morning, he was glad that he was leaving London for an island off the Devon coast for some days. It was not exactly a holiday. He had received a letter quite vague in its terms, but there was nothing vague about the accompanying cheque. A huge fee. These Owens must be rolling in money. It seemed a husband was worried about his wife’s health but she did not want to see a doctor. And he did not want to alarm her. Her nerves —

Nerves! These women and their nerves! Well, it was good for business, anyway. Half the women who consulted him had only suffered from boredom, but they wouldn’t thank you for telling them so! And one could usually find something.

“A slightly unusual condition of the – some long word – nothing at all serious – but it just needs a simple treatment.”

Well, a good part of medicine was faith-healing. And he had a good manner – he could inspire hope and faith.

Fortunately, he’d pulled himself together[10] in time after that business ten – no, fifteen years ago. He’d been going to pieces. The shock had pulled him together. He’d stopped drinking altogether. With a deafening blare of the horn an enormous sports car rushed past him at eighty miles an hour. Dr. Armstrong nearly went into the hedge. One of these young fools who rushed round the country. He hated them. That had been nearly a crash, too. Damned young fool!