Читать книгу Owl of Darkness - Max Afford - Страница 6

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For some moments he lay motionless, his body relaxed, his mind on that vague borderland between sleeping and waking, conscious of nothing save the liquid whisper of water hissing softly in his ears. The outlines of the room, dim in the light of a spent moon, were unfamiliar to him. Then his eyes moved to the long window framing the dark garden, and in that moment his mind cleared.

This was his bedroom in that riverside villa—Lady Evelyn Harnett's villa at Richmond. In the murmurous silence the pattern of his thoughts spun smoothly. Four weeks ago Andy Maxton had come to London from Australia. He had made Lady Evelyn's acquaintance through the Victorian League, when, home-sick and lonely, he had run across Ted Bissinger in the British Museum. Bissinger, a school-friend of Maxton's, was in the office of a film company, and, taking pity on the solitary young man, had introduced him to the League.

Over tea and buttered buns the League had arranged this week-end.

"You'll find Lady Evelyn very interested in Colonials," the secretary explained, "and there'll be other guests down there besides yourself." And before the young man, whose mind was feverishly reviewing the condition of his laundry, had time to reply, the secretary continued: "Lady Evelyn suggests the fourteenth. I take it that's quite convenient to you?"

Andy, his mouth full of buttered bun, nodded.

The house was cool and green and stood back in grounds that sloped gently towards the river. Comparing it with the confined grubbiness of his Bayswater room, the young man offered up a silent prayer for the ultimate salvation of the League and his hostess. Lady Evelyn was in the garden when he arrived.

Wearing heavy gloves and armed with a pair of garden shears, she was trimming her roses. This plump pink cocoon of a woman smiled vaguely upon him, paused in her arborial labours long enough to inquire his name and introduce him to the other guests—two Canadian girls and a lanky New Zealander named Insmith—and then, to his embarrassment, apparently forgot all about him.

A manservant named Keaton took him in hand, showed him his room, explained the position of the bath, and left the visitor hopelessly marooned in a terrifying maze of doors and passages. He was finally rescued by Insmith, who had been through all this before. The two men descended to the garden, where they found the Canadians wandering disconsolately. It was Insmith who suggested the walk, and the quartette spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring Richmond Old Church and examining the curious inscriptions on the tombstones.

Andy met his hostess again at dinner. Lady Evelyn's manner was even more vague. Over the joint course she became politely curious and asked him a number of questions about Canada. The young man countered these inquiries as well as he could, ignoring the sly twinkle in the eyes of the Dominion's daughters.

"And is it true," continued Lady Evelyn, "that your mounted policemen wear those charming red coats only on dress parades?"

Andy decided this false impression must be rectified, and on his halting explanation the hostess excused herself with a shrug and a smile that never reached her dark eyes.

"I feel," she murmured, "that this is the right time to ask Keaton to turn on the wireless." The awkward situation was carried off with an ease that was admirable, yet the young man could not help thinking that the charm, like the smile, was a little too mechanical. For the remainder of the meal, he watched covertly. Andy Maxton was no fool, and while one part of his mind was alive to the small-talk across the table, another was analysing the problem of Lady Evelyn Harnett. Before the meal was finished the young man was convinced that the pretty plump woman at the head of the table was hag-ridden by some dark anxiety she dared not face alone. Was it for this reason she had sought to fill her house with guests on this weekend?

Later they had danced to a programme of swing music broadcast from the B.B.C. Conversation consumed the interval before supper—conversation that centred around the Threat of War, What Struck Me Most in London, and, inevitably, the English Climate. They all retired, eventually, at the respectable hour of 11.15. Except for one disturbing incident, Andy Maxton's first evening at Malden Villa had been pleasant, suburban, and just a little disappointing.