Загадочное происшествие в Стайлзе / The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Книга для чтения на английском языке.

I don’t know if it was a letter, or just a piece of paper, but it had writing on it, and she kept staring at it, almost as if she couldn’t believe what was written there. She whispered to herself, as though she had forgotten I was there: ‘These few words—and everything’s changed.’ And then she says to me: ‘Never trust a man, Dorcas, they’re not worth it!’ I hurried off, and got her a good strong cup of tea, and she thanked me, and said she’d feel better when she’d drunk it. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says.

‘She still had the letter, or whatever it was, in her hand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What would she be likely to do with it afterwards?’

‘Well, I don’t know, sir, I expect she would lock it up in that purple case of hers.’

‘Is that where she usually kept important papers?’

‘Yes, sir. She brought it down with her every morning, and took it up every night.

‘When did she lose the key of it?’

‘She missed it yesterday at lunchtime, sir, and told me to look carefully for it. She was very much put out about it[76 - She was very much put out about it. – Она очень огорчилась из-за этого.].’

‘But she had a duplicate key?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

Dorcas was looking very curiously at him and, to tell the truth, so was I. What was all this about a lost key? Poirot smiled.

‘Never mind, Dorcas, it is my business to know things. Is this the key that was lost?’ He drew from his pocket the key that he had found in the lock of the dispatch case upstairs.

Dorcas’s eyes looked as though they would pop out of her head.

‘That’s it, sir, right enough. But where did you find it? I looked everywhere for it.’

‘Ah, but you see it was not in the same place yesterday as it was today. Now, to pass to another subject, had your mistress a dark green dress in her wardrobe?’

Dorcas was rather startled by the unexpected question.

‘No, sir.’

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Has anyone else in the house got a green dress?’ Dorcas reflected.

‘Miss Cynthia has a green evening dress.’

‘Light or dark green?’

‘A light green, sir; a sort of chiffon, they call it.’

‘Ah, that is not what I want. And nobody else has anything green?’

‘No, sir—not that I know of.