Причуда мертвеца / Dead Man's Folly. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Beneath it her face showed its pinky reflection on the dead-white surface of her skin. She was heavily made up in an exotic un-English style. Dead-white matt skin; vivid cyclamen lips, mascara applied lavishly to the eyes. Her hair showed beneath the hat, black and smooth, fitting like a velvet cap. There was a languorous un-English beauty about the face. She was a creature of the tropical sun, caught, as it were, by chance in an English drawing-room. But it was the eyes that startled Poirot. They had a childlike, almost vacant, stare.

She had asked her question in a confidential childish way, and it was as though to a child that Poirot answered.

�It is a very lovely ring,’ he said.

She looked pleased.

�George gave it to me yesterday,’ she said, dropping her voice as though she were sharing a secret with him. �He gives me lots of things. He’s very kind.’

Poirot looked down at the ring again and the hand outstretched on the side of the chair. The nails were very long and varnished a deep puce.

Into his mind a quotation came: �They toil not, neither do they spin…[38 - They toil not, neither do they spin… – Не трудятся они и не прядут… (цитата из Евангелия от Луки 12:27: «Посмотрите на лилии, как они растут: не трудятся, не прядут; но говорю вам, что и Соломон во всей славе своей не одевался так, как всякая из них»).

He certainly couldn’t imagine Lady Stubbs toiling or spinning. And yet he would hardly have described her as a lily of the field. She was a far more artificial product.

�This is a beautiful room you have here, Madame,’ he said, looking round appreciatively.

�I suppose it is,’ said Lady Stubbs vaguely.

Her attention was still on her ring; her head on one side, she watched the green fire in its depths as her hand moved.

She said in a confidential whisper, �D’you see? It’s winking at me.

She burst out laughing and Poirot had a sense of sudden shock. It was a loud uncontrolled laugh.

From across the room Sir George said: �Hattie.’

His voice was quite kind but held a faint admonition. Lady Stubbs stopped laughing.

Poirot said in a conventional manner:

�Devonshire is a very lovely county. Do you not think so?’

�It’s nice in the daytime,’ said Lady Stubbs.