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

There was nothing I could do now but to sit there in the hope she would return sometime during the night. With three hundred dollars still nagging at my conscience, I settled down to wait. Sometime around three o’clock in the morning, I fell asleep. The first rays of the sun, striking through the windshield of the car brought me sharply awake. I had a crick in my neck[9 - I had a crick in my neck – (разг.) У меня затекла шея], a nagging ache in my spine and a guilty feeling when I realised I had slept for three hours when I should have been earning my three hundred dollars.

Coming up the road was a milk delivery truck. I watched the milkman stop and start as he delivered milk to each bungalow. He drove past No. 33, then stopped just opposite me to deliver milk to No. 35.

As he came out, I joined him. He was an elderly man whose face showed much background of hard living and toil. He looked inquiringly at me, pausing with his milk bottles in their wire basket clutched in his hand.

“You forgot No. 33,” I said. “Everyone’s got milk but No. 33.”

He looked me over, his old eyes curious. “They happen to be away”, he said. “What’s it to you[10 - What’s it to you – (разг.) Вам-то какое дело], mister?”

I could see he was the kind you don’t take liberties with. I had no wish to have a cop on my neck so I took out my professional card and handed it to him. He examined it carefully, then whistling gently through his teeth, he returned the card to me.

“You don’t call on No. 33?” I asked.

“Sure I do, but they’re away for a month.”

“Who are they?”

He considered the question for a moment. “Mr. and Mrs. Myers.”

“I understand Mr. and Mrs. Hardwick live there now.”

He put down the wire basket and shifted his hat to the back of his head.

“Right now no one lives there, mister,” he said, scratching his forehead. “I would know if there was anyone there.

People have to have milk and I’m the one who delivers it up here. I don’t deliver milk to No. 33 because no one lives there this month.”

“I see,” I said, but I didn’t. “You don’t think Mr. Myers rented his place to this other guy?”

“I’ve served Mr. Myers for eight years,” he told me. “He’s never hired out his place to anyone. He always goes away this month for a month.” He picked up his wire basket.