Тринадцать гостей / Thirteen Guests

”

“I know what it is,” thought the young man. “She’s so confoundedly natural!” Aloud he asked, “Your mother?”

“It would have been politer to have asked if she were my grandmother! I forgive you. She’s neither. She is our—my hostess’s mother. Bragley Court is the place of the Avelings, you know. Or don’t you know?”

“What! Lord Aveling?” She nodded. “I say—do you think you’d better take me there?”

“Why not? Are you Labour?”

He did not reply at once.

He was frowning. In the distance the dogs were barking again. A bird, too fat to emigrate, sent a note of shrill sweetness from a bough. “I have just eaten a worm,” sang the bird. It was happy. The snow was a long way off.

“I don’t know whether you realise what I’m realising,” said the young man seriously, “but I may have to stay a bit where you set me down.”

“That’s exactly why—since you’ve given me no other address—I’m taking you to Bragley Court.

I’ve already implied that if I took you to either of the local inns here I might be had up for murder.”

“But—”

“Do you think, if you tried terribly hard, you could stop worrying? If we catch the doctor, let him decide.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then Lord Aveling can decide. And I know his decision in advance, or I wouldn’t risk inviting it.”

“I’m not too sure of that,” said the young man. “You do take risks.

”

“Do I?”

“You’ve risked—me!”

“So I have!”

“What makes you think Lord Aveling won’t kick against having a stranger lumped upon him, even temporarily?”

“Three things, my dear man. Is that too familiar? One, Lord Aveling. Conservatives with ambition are splendid hosts. Two, myself. I’ve an instinct—and Lord Aveling likes me, and knows I’d never let him down. Three—isn’t that an old school tie?”

This time he laughed.

“Satisfied?” she laughed back.

“Sounds pretty good,” he admitted.

“Thank God for that,” sighed Nadine. “Because here we are, and there’s no turning back now. By the way, what’s your name?”

Chapter II. Inventory

Half an hour later John Foss, bandaged and stretched out on a rose-coloured settee, reviewed his position.

He had been received at Bragley Court with the utmost ease and courtesy.