Читать книгу River of Death - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, John Denis - Страница 6

The drawing-room of Joshua Smith’s villa—the Villa Haydn in Brasilia—demonstrated beyond all question the vast gulf that lay between a multi-billionaire and the merely rich. The furnishings, mainly Louis XIV and not the shadow of an imitation in sight, the drapes, from Belgium and Malta, the carpets, ancient Persian to the last one, and the pictures, ranging all the way from Dutch Old Masters to the Impressionists, all spoke not only of immense wealth but also a hedonistic determination to use it to its maximum. But for all that vast opulence there was nonetheless displayed an exquisite good taste in that everything matched and blended in something very, very close to perfection. Clearly, no modern interior decorator had been allowed within a mile of the place.

The owner matched up magnificently to all this magnificence. He was a large, well-built and dinner-suited man of late middle age who looked absolutely at home in one of the huge armchairs that he occupied close to a sparkling pine log fire.

Joshua Smith, still dark in both hair and moustache, the one brushed straight back, the other neatly trimmed, was a smooth and urbane man, but not too smooth, not too urbane, much given to smiling and invariably kind and courteous to his inferiors which, in his case, meant just about everybody in sight. With the passage of time, the carefully and painstakingly acquired geniality and urbanity had become second nature to him (although some of the original ruthlessness had had to remain to account for his untold millions). Only a specialist could have detected the extensive plastic surgery that had transformed Smith’s face from what it once had been.

There was another man in his drawing-room, and a young woman. Jack Tracy was a young-middle-aged man, blond, with a pock-marked face and a general air of capable toughness about him. The toughness and capability were undoubtedly there—they had to be for any man to be the general manager of Smith’s vast chain of newspapers and magazines.

Maria Schneider, with her slightly dusky skin and brown eyes, could have been South American, Southern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. Her hair was the colour of a raven. Whatever her nationality she was indisputably beautiful with a rather inscrutable face but invariably watchful penetrating eyes. She didn’t look kind or sensitive but was both. She looked intelligent and had to be: when not doubling—as rumour had it—as Smith’s mistress she was his private and confidential secretary and it was no rumour that she was remarkably skilled in her official capacity.