Читать книгу The Grassleyes Mystery - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Mr. Frank Woodley looked up from the ledger which he was studying, rose to his feet and approached the mahogany counter behind which he and his desk were entrenched. He was an elderly man with unkempt grey hair, a tired expression and various irregularities of toilet accounted for by the heat wave then prevailing from the Estérels to Monte Carlo. Business was uncertain at this time of the year with the firm of Spenser & Sykes, the well-known house-agents, and Mr. Woodley, the manager, scarcely expected a client of interest.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired of the caller who had summoned him.

The latter leaned a little forward. His back was towards the door, through which the sunlight was streaming. He was a lean, broad-shouldered man of apparently between thirty and thirty-five years of age, with firm features, clear grey-blue eyes and resolute expression.

"I am looking for an apartment," he announced. "I do not wish to go to an hotel. I would not consider an ordinary boarding-house. But I should prefer some sort of service."

"In the town of Nice?" Mr. Woodley asked.

"Certainly not," was the concise reply. "I wish to be somewhere within a twenty-mile radius of either Nice or Cannes, but I also wish to be entirely in the country. I have a great deal of research work to do and it is my habit to seek as much seclusion as possible."

The manager scratched his chin thoughtfully. His visitor's calm, decisive manner of speech was in its way impressive, but his appearance, when closely studied, was a little puzzling. He was a youngish man and looked like a worker, Mr. Woodley decided. He certainly had not the air of a pleasure seeker or a lounger through life.

"What name, sir?" he asked, drawing a printed form towards him.

The other hesitated.

"Is it necessary for me to give my name before you can tell me whether you have anything likely to suit me?"

"It is usual, sir."

"My name is Granet, then. David Granet."

"And your nationality?"

"British."

The manager returned to the desk at which he had been seated and turned over some leaves of the opened ledger.

"We have any number of apartments to offer," he confided, bringing over the volume and laying it on the counter. "Quite half of these are in the country or in the suburbs. Do you wish a farm or garden?"

"Nothing that requires outside service. I want quietude and reasonable proximity to the sea, if possible."

"Might I ask what price you are willing to pay?"

"If I can find what I am looking for price is not a matter of import. I do not want the trouble of housekeeping. I do not desire the company of my fellows. I wish, in short, to pursue my own life in my own fashion."

Mr. Woodley looked his possible client up and down. Again he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Of course I don't know, sir," he said, "but there are one or two farms up in the mountains where they let off part of their premises to boarders, but they none of them speak any English—"

"I can speak French," the other interrupted, "but, as I have already told you, I do not wish to be a boarder. I possess a small car so I have no objection to being some little distance away."

"There is the Manoir of Lady Grassleyes, of course," the manager reflected, taking off his pince-nez and wiping the lenses.

"Well what about it?"

"Lady Grassleyes is a widow whose husband was in the Indian Civil Service. She has a rather lonely but very beautiful estate about thirty kilometres away. It is entirely in the country and is at least twenty kilometres from the sea."

"If it is a guest house it would be no use to me."

"It is not a guest house in the ordinary sense of the word," the manager said. "Lady Grassleyes has built six bungalows in the woods around the Manoir. Each is provided with the ordinary accessories of life. You can either have your own servant or be looked after from the Manoir and have your meals sent down from there. There are no public rooms and the inhabitants of the bungalows are only expected to visit the Manoir on business or by special invitation."

"Are any of the bungalows let?"

"Most of them, I think, sir."

"What rent does Lady Grassleyes ask?"

"The rent of the one I am offering you, including use of furniture, crockery, plate and linen, is eight mille a month."

"That seems a good deal, but I should like a card of inspection," Granet decided.

"We have none, sir. If you thought seriously about the place you would have to apply at the Manoir. Lady Grassleyes does not care to let one of her bungalows until she has had a personal interview with the applicant."

David Granet scoffed audibly.

"What business is it of hers who I am so long as I pay my rent and keep to myself?" he demanded. "I can give you a banker's reference, of course."

"I am sorry, sir," the manager regretted. "Lady Grassleyes' instructions are definite. She will only let after a personal interview. The bungalows, you will understand, although they have been carefully built out of sight of the Manoir, are in the park. Madame offers privacy to her tenants. It is not unnatural that she should require to know something about them. If you would care for the address—"

"Hand it over."

"I have not only the address, sir," Woodley pointed out as he took a card from a drawer, "but you will find here a small plan which shows you the route to be followed. I hope that we shall hear from you again."

David Granet nodded.

"You certainly shall, one way or the other," he promised as he pocketed the card and turned away.

Outside, the Promenade des Anglais was thronged with the usual half-clad crowd of bathers and loungers in pyjamas, shorts and every variety of beach suit. The blazing sun flashed upon a million wavelets; heads bobbed here and there in the sea; speed-boats were darting about in every direction. David Granet paused for a moment, looking across the road at the gay scene. Then he walked a few paces and stepped into a formidable-looking roadster which was parked against the kerbstone. He glanced at the card which he had drawn from his pocket, handled his starting button and gears with the air of an expert and within half an hour was gliding up the very attractive private way which led to his destination. The Manoir itself was an exceedingly picturesque stone building of Provençal type, red-tiled, admirably restored and set in the midst of precipitous terraces of blossoming shrubs, climbing roses and dark cypresses. He could see no definite trace of the bungalows but the park was everywhere dotted with coppices and small woods which afforded excellent shelter for buildings of that kind. He drew up before the heavy front door of the Manoir with its wrought-iron clampings and huge-ringed handle, alighted from the car and rang the bell. For a moment or two nothing happened. He heard the deep, mellow echoes of his summons die away in the distance. Then he was suddenly aware of a curious sound—the sound of pattering footsteps upon a stone floor. They came nearer every second. David Granet, who was a man accustomed to unusual situations, felt a slight tension of his limbs. The patter of footsteps ceased, the door was smoothly opened. In place of the breathless servitor he had imagined, a carefully dressed butler, wearing a white-linen coat and black trousers, with smooth-shaven, dusky complexion and the slightly oblique eyes of the Oriental, stood looking at him gravely.

"Is Lady Grassleyes at home?"

The man bowed. He held the door a little wider open.

"If monsieur will enter—" he invited. "The name, if you please?"

"Does it matter about my name?" Granet asked, stepping across the threshold. "I have called about one of the bungalows on the estate which I understand is to let."

The man smiled suavely.

"Milady will prefer to receive your card."

Granet drew a case from his pocket, took out a card and handed it to the man, who, without glancing at it, placed it carefully in the middle of a silver tray, ranged with several others upon a black-oak chest. He pointed to a straight-backed chair which stood against the wall.

"If gentleman will seat himself I will seek milady. Sometimes it is her pleasure to let a bungalow. Sometimes she finds them all full. If gentleman will please wait?"

Granet looked at him with searching eyes.

"You speak English very well."

"Either English or French, whichever monsieur desires," was the smooth reply. "If gentleman will be so kind as to sit down?"

Granet did as he was bidden. He watched the butler cross the spacious hall with its rough stone walls and disappear, walking now in slow and dignified fashion, down a long passage. There was no suggestion of haste about his movements. Granet looked after him with a puzzled frown upon his forehead. He recognized the type without difficulty. The man was without a doubt half Malayan, half Chinese from the northern provinces. But his neck was short, his body almost corpulent. He showed no signs of one likely to be fond of exercise yet those pattering footsteps had been the footsteps of a trained runner. Granet, on the whole a matter-of-fact person, shrugged his shoulders and left the puzzle to solve itself. Indeed, he had no alternative. The butler had returned and was bowing before him.

"Milady will see gentleman," he confided smiling. "Please to follow."

Granet rose to his feet and followed his squat but dignified guide across the stone hall, down the passage until they arrived at a black-oak door. The servant threw it open, standing on one side to allow Granet to pass.

"The gentleman to see bungalow, milady," he announced.

He disappeared, closing the door behind him. Granet made his way across the long room, austere and melancholy in its furnishings, but, as he could not fail to notice even in those few moments, filled with some very beautiful Provençal pieces. At a writing-table at the end of the room a woman was seated in a high-backed chair. She was wearing a black-silk dress buttoned up to her throat. Her hair was also black, streaked with grey; she was thin, almost angular; she wore steel-rimmed spectacles; her head had fallen a little forward as though she were asleep. Granet halted a few feet from the desk and looked at her with growing curiosity.

"Lady Grassleyes," he said quietly, "my name is Granet. I have called to see you about one of your bungalows."

Even as he spoke, however, he knew that with whomever he might discuss the matter of this bungalow it was improbable that it would ever be with the woman at the writing-table. She had not looked up as he had spoken or offered him any sort of welcome. He was a man of swift perception and from the first he felt convinced that she was dead.