Читать книгу Old Pybus - Warwick Deeping - Страница 6

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It happened that this old Roman was standing in his usual place in front of the brass gong when Mr. Conrad Pybus’s car pulled up at the curb. The blue bonnet was the colour of a French soldier’s tunic. Every sort of car pulled up at the Saracen’s Head, and their cargoes were as various as the cars. But this was a car of quality, and old John walked along the strip of carpet and out down the two well-whitened steps. He did not hurry. He was both brisk and deliberate.

“Allow me, madam.”

The lady was in the act of opening the door of the coupé. Old John saw her and not the man, for—in the act of leaning forward—she obscured the figure of Mr. Conrad Pybus. She was a gentlewoman—as well as a lady. She exhaled an indefinable perfume, and was smart with an exquisite and simple rightness. Her dark and jocund eyes smiled at old John from under the brim of a black hat. She was wearing a simple tweed suit in which purples and browns were blended.

John held the door open for her.

“Any luggage, madam?”

There was something roguish in her glance.

“No; no luggage, thank you.”

“Very good, madam. The lounge is on the left. I will show the gentleman the garage.”

She crossed the pavement and went up the two white steps, and old John stood holding the handle of the coupé door. He was looking at Mr. Conrad Pybus. His blue eyes seemed to grow very large with a staring, challenging intensity. Mr. Pybus stared back, but his eyes were the eyes of a man profoundly astonished and nonplussed. Also—he was profoundly disturbed. His big, white face seemed to hang there in the interior of the coupé like a bladder of lard. A gloved hand rested tentatively on the knob of the gear lever.

There was an extraordinary stillness. It may have lasted for ten seconds. Then the interlocked glances of the two men seemed to fall apart, or rather—the younger man’s eyes flinched from the older one’s. Old John was closing the door when a voice intervened.

“Oh, I have left my bag.”

She had come back for her vanity bag, and old John recovered it from the seat, and closed the door of the coupé with a gesture of crisp fierceness.

“The garage is on the left, sir, through the arch.”

Mr. Pybus, staring straight ahead through the wind-screen, pulled the gear lever over.

“Are you taking lunch, sir?”

“I am.”

“You’ll find a side door in the yard, sir. Gentlemen’s lavatory just inside, first on the right.”

Old John, turning with deliberation, walked back into the hotel, and his white head regained its yellow halo as he resumed his place in front of the brass gong.