A Coffin from Hong Kong / Гроб из Гонконга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

) погуливать в его отсутствие] and suddenly, as he was leaving for another business trip, he had finally decided to check on her. It was the kind of thing a worried, unhappy man might do – a split-second impulse[5 - a split-second impulse – (разг.) решение, принятое в последнюю минуту]. All the same, I didn’t like it much. I don’t like anonymous clients. I don’t like disembodied voices on the telephone. I like to know with whom I am dealing. This setup seemed a shade too hurried and a shade too contrived.

While I was turning over the information I had got from him, I heard footfalls coming along the passage. A tap sounded on the frosted panel of my door, then the door opened. An Express messenger dropped a fat envelope on my desk and offered me his book for my signature.

He was a little guy with freckles, young and still clinging to an enthusiasm for life that had begun to slip away from me. As I signed his book, his eyes sneered around the small shabby room, taking in the damp stain on the ceiling, the dust on the bookcase, the unimpressive desk, the worn clients’ chair and the breast and bottom calendar on the wall.

When he had gone I opened the envelope. It contained thirty ten-dollar bills. Typed on a plain card were the words:

From John Hardwick, 33 Connaught Boulevard, Pasadena City. For a moment I was puzzled how he could have got the money to me so quickly, then I decided he must have a credit rating with the Express Messenger Company and had telephoned them immediately after telephoning me.

Their offices were just across the street from my office block.

I pulled the telephone book towards me and turned up the Hardwicks. There was no John Hardwick. I eased myself out of my desk chair and plodded across the room to consult the Street Directory. It told me Jack S. Myers, Jnr., and not John Hardwick, lived at 33 Connaught Boulevard.

I stroked my six o’clock shadow while I considered the situation.

I remembered that Connaught Boulevard was an out-of-the-way road up on Palma Mountain, about three miles from the centre of the city. It was the kind of district where people might rent their homes while they were on vacation: this could be the situation as regards John Hardwick and his wife. He might possibly be an executive of Herron Corporation, waiting for his own house to be built, and in the meantime, he had rented 33 Connaught Boulevard from Jack S. Myers, Jnr.