Читать книгу Death on the Riviera - Ernest Elmore - Страница 17

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Bill Dillon stood before the wardrobe mirror in his hotel bedroom and took a final critical look at his appearance. Umph, not so bad. Lucky he’d had the good sense to pack his dinner-jacket even if it was a bit tight across the shoulders. No doubt that during these last two years he’d put on weight. No doubt either that all the violent and unaccustomed exercises of the last two days had developed his muscles.

Only that afternoon in an old bush shirt and khaki shorts, with a rucksack on his back, he’d been for his daily constitutional in the mountains. He’d driven up through Castillon and Sospey, parked the car near Col de Braus and struck out on foot to explore its rugged and precipitous environs. This was the third time he’d followed this particular route up from Menton for a scramble among the lower peaks of the nine thousand foot range. Up there the air had been clear as crystal, the sun scorching down from a cloudless sky, the heat reflected upward from the bare and shimmering rock. Certainly his complexion had suffered from the day’s expedition. No getting away from it—at the moment his wasn’t the sort of face that would look well at the dinner table. But Bill wasn’t troubled. That afternoon up in the mountains he’d found the answer to a vital problem, a tantalizing uncertainty that for two years or more had nattered at his peace-of-mind.

He wound a silk muffler round his neck, locked the door of his room and went down to his car. Now that his visit to the Villa Paloma was imminent Bill’s apprehension increased. All day, caught up in strenuous activity, he’d been able to forget this fateful meeting with Kitty. Now, as he drove through the cooling streets, with the strong sweet perfume of the mimosa in his nostrils, he wondered what the devil the outcome would be. Somehow he must edge Kitty aside and speak to her alone. It wouldn’t be easy for, in her present mood, Kitty would probably do her damnedest to deny him this opportunity. He knew only too well how stubborn and wilful she could be. But the knowledge did nothing to ease the passionate longing that moved him when he thought of Kitty. No matter what had happened in the past, Bill knew that without her the future would be pretty well unbearable.

Yes, somehow during the course of the evening he must make a last desperate effort to win her back. An unreasonable hope, perhaps. But a man in love, thought Bill wryly, doesn’t base his hopes on reason.