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

Oh, no, I’m the housekeeper—more housekeeper than secretary, sometimes, in this house.’

She gave a short acid laugh.

�So you are the housekeeper?’ Poirot considered her thoughtfully.

He could not see Miss Brewis writing a blackmailing letter. Now, an anonymous letter—that would be a different thing. He had known anonymous letters written by women not unlike Miss Brewis—solid, dependable women, totally unsuspected by those around them.

�What is your butler’s name?’ he asked.

�Henden.

’ Miss Brewis looked a little astonished.

Poirot recollected himself and explained quickly:

�I ask because I had a fancy I had seen him somewhere before.’

�Very likely,’ said Miss Brewis. �None of these people ever seem to stay in any place more than four months. They must soon have done the round of all the available situations in England. After all, it’s not many people who can afford butlers and cooks nowadays.’

They came into the drawing-room, where Sir George, looking somehow rather unnatural in a dinner-jacket, was proffering sherry.

Mrs Oliver, in iron-grey satin, was looking like an obsolete battleship, and Lady Stubbs’ smooth black head was bent down as she studied the fashions in Vogue[77 - Vogue – журнал мод, издается с 1892 года.].

Alec and Sally Legge were dining and also Jim Warburton.

�We’ve a heavy evening ahead of us,’ he warned them. �No bridge tonight. All hands to the pumps[78 - All hands to the pumps.

– Все к помпам! (команда экипажу корабля при течи).]. There are any amount of notices to print, and the big card for the Fortune Telling. What name shall we have? Madame Zuleika? Esmeralda? Or Romany Leigh, the Gipsy Queen?’

�The Eastern touch,’ said Sally. �Everyone in agricultural districts hates gipsies. Zuleika sounds all right. I brought my paint box over and I thought Michael could do us a curling snake to ornament the notice.’

�Cleopatra rather than Zuleika, then?’

Henden appeared at the door.

�Dinner is served, my lady.’

They went in. There were candles on the long table. The room was full of shadows.

Warburton and Alec Legge sat on either side of their hostess. Poirot was between Mrs Oliver and Miss Brewis. The latter was engaged in brisk general conversation about further details of preparation for tomorrow.

Mrs Oliver sat in brooding abstraction and hardly spoke.