LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

they were not to be alone. Alleyn and Fox left a large policeman behind them and, more than anything else that had happened during that incredible evening, the sight of this stolid figure with scrubbed face and shining buttons, standing inside the drawing-room door, sent an icy thrill of panic through Roberta. Apparently the Lampreys were not so affected. Obeying a murmur from his mother, Colin offered the constable an armchair and asked him if he would like to move nearer to the fire at the opposite end of the room. With a glance at the man’s note-book, Colin turned on a table lamp at his elbow. At this astonishing anticipation of his activities the constable turned a deep crimson, put away his note-book and hurriedly took it out again. Colin begged him to take the chair and in some confusion he finally sat down.

      Colin rejoined his family at the other end of the room.

      ‘Eh bien,’ said Frid, ‘maintenant, nous parlerons comme si le monsieur n’etait pas là.’

      ‘Frid!’ cried her mother. ‘Attention!’ Frid peered down the length of the room and, raising her voice, said to the constable: ‘I do hope you won’t mind us trying to talk in French. You see, we have got one or two things to discuss and as they are sort of rather private it will be less embarrassing for all of us, won’t it? I mean, you won’t feel that we are too odiously rude, will you?’

      The policeman rose, cleared his throat and said: ‘No, Miss,’ and as though he ardently desired a ruling on the point, cast an anguished look at the door. After a moment’s hesitation he again took the armchair offered by Colin, and now all the Lampreys could see of him was the top of his head which was red.

      ‘That’s all right, then, Mummy,’ said Frid. ‘Alors. A propos les jumeaux –’

      Roberta’s heart sank. Charlot and Lord Charles, she knew, spoke French with some fluency. Frid had been to a finishing school in Paris. Henry and the twins had attended the university at Grenoble and had spent most of their holidays with friends on the Côte d’Azur. Even Patch and Mike, in the New Zealand days, had made life hideous for a sweating Frenchwoman who had followed the Lampreys to England and was still sporadically employed during the holidays. Roberta, on the contrary, had merely taken French at school and knew from bitter experience that when the Lampreys spoke in that language their conversation resembled a continuous rattle of fricatives and plosives, maddeningly leavened with occasional words that Roberta could understand. They were at it now. Lord Charles seemed to expostulate, Henry to argue. The twins were comparatively silent and looked mulish. Once, in answer to a prolonged harangue from Frid, Colin said: ‘Laissez-vous donc tranquilles, Frid. In fact, shut up.’

      Henry said: ‘This is fun for Robin, I must say.’

      ‘Darling Robin,’ said Charlot, ‘you don’t mind, do you?’

      ‘Of course I don’t. And I have followed a bit.’

      ‘Taisez-vous donc!’ commanded Frid dramatically. ‘Ecoutez!’

      ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Henry testily.

      ‘Listen, all of you.’

      From a distant part of the flat came the sound of a deep voice.

      ‘It’s Mr Alleyn,’ said Frid. ‘What’s he yelling like that for?’

      ‘Perhaps he’s flown into a black rage,’ suggested Patch.

      ‘Perhaps he’s arresting Nanny or someone,’ said Stephen.

      ‘I must say I don’t see why he should roar at her, even if he is. And anyway,’ added Frid, ‘he doesn’t sound like that. He sounds as if he’s yelling to someone downstairs.’

      ‘Or to someone deaf,’ Stephen amended.

      ‘Good Heavens,’ cried Charlot, ‘can it be Aunt Kit?’

      ‘Really, Immy!’ said Lord Charles, ‘why on earth should Aunt Kit come back here at this hour?’

      ‘Everything is so odd that I don’t consider the return of Aunt Kit at midnight would be at all surprising.’

      ‘It isn’t midnight,’ said Patch.

      ‘Mr Alleyn is growing fainter,’ observed Colin. ‘He must be going downstairs and roaring as he goes.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ suggested Patch, ‘he’s sitting in the lift and shouting to find out si nous avons parlé vrai, au sujet de mon oncle.’

      ‘Patch, darling!’ lamented Charlot, ‘your accent. Honestly!’

      ‘Well, I suppose we can’t go and find out,’ said Frid with a glance at the back of the constable’s head.

      ‘Good God!’ ejaculated Lord Charles. ‘It is Aunt Kit.’

      And through the door into the drawing-room came Lady Katherine Lobe.

      ‘Immy darling,’ she whispered, as she embraced Charlot. ‘So terrible but in a way such a dispensation. His ways are indeed mysterious and no doubt He has chosen this instrument. Charlie, my dear!’

      ‘Aunt Kit, where have you been?’

      ‘To Hampstead. By tube and bus. I should have returned sooner but most unfortunately I caught the wrong bus and then again Mr Nathan took such a long time. And all for nothing as it turns out. Though even now with the death duties –’

      ‘Whom did you go to see at Hampstead?’

      ‘A Mr Isadore Z. Nathan, Charlie. I thought I should find him in his shop but of course when I left here it was after closing hours. But I found his private address in the telephone book and luckily he was at home. Such an amazing house, Immy. Enormous pictures and a great deal of velvet. But Mr Nathan was charming.’

      ‘You can’t mean Uncle Izzy from the pop-shop round the corner!’ Frid ejaculated.

      ‘What, darling?’

      ‘Not the pawnbroker in Admiral Street, Aunt Kit?’

      ‘Yes. You see, Charlie, I had often thought of doing it for my lame ducks, because it did seem rather extravagant and useless to pay all those large premiums when I am not well off, but as they were family things and almost the only family things that I had, I always imagined that mama would not have approved, so I didn’t. But this was quite different because you are the family and it gave me the very greatest pleasure, darling. I couldn’t be more pleased. Now, perhaps, you will feel you would like to redeem them, though, for the time being –’

      ‘Aunt Kit,’ said Lord Charles hastily, ‘you’re not talking about the Indian pearls?’

      ‘What, dear?’

      ‘Not Great-Aunt Caroline’s pearls?’

      ‘It’s such luck that I always wear them.’ Lady Katherine fumbled in her reticule and produced a slip of paper over which she enclosed Lord Charles’s nerveless fingers. ‘There, Charlie, my dear. And I’m so glad. I’m sure Mr Nathan is perfectly all right. He took a very long time examining them and you see I knew their value because of the insurance and I drove quite a shrewd bargain with him. I asked him to make the cheque out to you because –’

      Charlot, rather belatedly, interrupted Lady Katherine with a loud patter of French. Lady Katherine peered towards the far end of the room, uttered a whispered ejaculation, and sank into the nearest chair. Lord Charles stared through his glass at the cheque, seemed to try to speak to his aunt, made a small helpless gesture and turned to his wife.

      ‘Darling Aunt Kit,’ began Charlot and stopped short. ‘C’est trop –’ She stopped again. ‘I simply cannot go on yelling French,’ said Charlot. She glanced at the top of the policeman’s head, went to the desk near Roberta, drew out a sheet of paper, and took up her pen.

      ‘Surely,’ said Lady Katherine, ‘he can’t

Скачать книгу