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

With a baffled air of bewilderment[2 - with a baffled air of bewilderment — с выражением замешательства и недоумения на лице], Poirot put back the receiver and murmured something under his breath. Miss Lemon sat with her pencil poised, incurious. She repeated in muted tones the final phrase of dictation before the interruption.

�—allow me to assure you, my dear sir, that the hypothesis you have advanced…’

Poirot waved aside the advancement of the hypothesis.

�That was Mrs Oliver,’ he said. �Ariadne Oliver, the detective novelist. You may have read…’ But he stopped, remembering that Miss Lemon only read improving books and regarded such frivolities as fictional crime with contempt. �She wants me to go down to Devonshire today, at once, in’—he glanced at the clock—�thirty-five minutes.’

Miss Lemon raised disapproving eyebrows.

�That will be running it rather fine,’ she said. �For what reason?’

�You may well ask! She did not tell me.

�How very peculiar. Why not?’

�Because,’ said Hercule Poirot thoughtfully, �she was afraid of being overheard. Yes, she made that quite clear.’

�Well, really,’ said Miss Lemon, bristling in her employer’s defence. �The things people expect! Fancy thinking that you’d go rushing off on some wild goose chase[3 - wild goose chase — сумасбродная затея] like that! An important man like you! I have always noticed that these artists and writers are very unbalanced—no sense of proportion.

Her hand went out to the telephone. Poirot’s voice arrested the gesture.

�Du tout!’[4 - Du tout! – (фр.) Не надо!] he said. �On the contrary. Be so kind as to summon a taxi immediately.’ He raised his voice. �Georges! A few necessities of toilet in my small valise. And quickly, very quickly, I have a train to catch.

II

The train, having done one hundred and eighty-odd miles of its two hundred and twelve miles journey at top speed, puffed gently and apologetically through the last thirty and drew into Nassecombe station. Only one person alighted, Hercule Poirot. He negotiated with care a yawning gap between the step of the train and the platform and looked round him. At the far end of the train a porter was busy inside a luggage compartment.