Читать книгу Dead Water - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 17

‘“;– and I’d take it as a personal favour”,’ Alleyn dictated, ‘“if you could spare a man to keep an eye on the Island when Miss Pride arrives there. Very likely nothing will come of these communications but, as we all know, they can lead to trouble. I ought to warn you that Miss Pride, though eighty-three, is in vigorous possession of all her faculties and if she drops to it that you’ve got her under observation, she may cut up rough. No doubt, like all the rest of us, you’re under-staffed and won’t thank me for putting you to this trouble. If your chap does notice anything out of the way, I would be very glad to hear of it. Unless a job blows up to stop me, I’m grabbing an overdue week’s leave from tomorrow and will be at the above address.

‘“Again – sorry to be a nuisance,

Yours sincerely,”

‘All right. Got the name? Superintendent A. F. Coombe, Divisional HQ, wherever it is – at Portcarrow itself, I fancy. Get it off straight away, will you?’

When the letter had gone he looked at his watch. Five minutes past midnight. His desk was cleared and his files closed. The calendar showed Monday. He flipped it over. ‘I should have written before,’ he thought. ‘My letter will arrive with Miss Emily.’ He was ready to leave, but, for some reason, dawdled there, too tired, suddenly, to make a move. After a vague moment or two he lit his pipe, looked round his room and walked down the long corridor and the stairs, wishing the PC on duty at the doors good night.

It was his only superstition. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs.’

As he drove away down the Embankment he thought: ‘Damned if I don’t ring that Super up in the morning: be damned if I don’t.’