Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [13]
Lucia looked up at him in surprise. ‘Richard,’ she said faintly, ‘do you really mean it? We can get away from here? But I thought you said – what about? – where will the money come from?’
‘There are always ways of acquiring money,’ said Richard, grimly.
There was alarm in Lucia’s voice as she asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said her husband, ‘that when a man cares about a woman as much as I care about you, he’ll do anything. Anything!’
‘It does not flatter me to hear you say that,’ Lucia responded. ‘It only tells me that you still do not trust me – that you think you must buy my love with –’
She broke off, and looked around as the door to the study opened and Edward Raynor returned. Raynor walked over to the coffee table and picked up a cup of coffee, as Lucia changed her position on the settee, moving down to one end of it. Richard had wandered moodily across to the fireplace, and was staring into the unlit fire.
Barbara, beginning a tentative foxtrot alone, looked at her cousin Richard as though considering whether to invite him to dance. But, apparently put off by his stony countenance, she turned to Raynor. ‘Care to dance, Mr Raynor?’ she asked.
‘I’d love to, Miss Amory,’ the secretary replied. ‘Just a moment, while I take Sir Claud his coffee.’
Lucia suddenly rose from the settee. ‘Mr Raynor,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that isn’t Sir Claud’s coffee. You’ve taken the wrong cup.’
‘Have I?’ said Raynor. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Lucia picked up another cup from the coffee table, and held it out to Raynor. They exchanged cups. ‘That,’ said Lucia, as she handed her cup to Raynor, ‘is Sir Claud’s coffee.’ She smiled enigmatically to herself, placed the cup Raynor had given her on the coffee table, and returned to the settee.
Turning his back to Lucia, the secretary took some tablets from his pocket and dropped them into the cup he was holding. As he was walking with it towards the study door, Barbara intercepted him. ‘Do come and dance with me, Mr Raynor,’ she pleaded, with one of her most engaging smiles. ‘I’d force Dr Carelli to, except that I can tell he’s simply dying to dance with Lucia.’
As Raynor hovered indecisively, Richard Amory approached. ‘You may as well give in to her, Raynor,’ he advised. ‘Everyone does, eventually. Here, give the coffee to me. I’ll take it to my father.’
Reluctantly, Raynor allowed the coffee cup to be taken from him. Turning away, Richard paused momentarily and then went through into Sir Claud’s study. Barbara and Edward Raynor, having first turned over the gramophone record on the machine, were now slowly waltzing in each other’s arms. Dr Carelli watched them for a moment or two with an indulgent smile, before approaching Lucia who, wearing a look of utter dejection, was still seated on the settee.
Carelli addressed her. ‘It was most kind of Miss Amory to allow me to join you for the weekend,’ he said.
Lucia looked up at him. For a few seconds she did not speak, but then said, finally, ‘She is the kindest of people.’
‘And this is such a charming house,’ continued Carelli, moving behind the settee. ‘You must show me over it some time. I am extremely interested in the domestic architecture of this period.’
While he was speaking, Richard Amory had returned from the study. Ignoring his wife and Carelli, he went across to the box of drugs on the centre table, and began to tidy its contents.
‘Miss Amory can tell you much more about this house than I can,’ Lucia told Dr Carelli. ‘I know very little of these things.’
Looking around first, to confirm that Richard Amory was busying himself with the drugs, that Edward Raynor and Barbara Amory were still waltzing at the far end of the room, and that Caroline Amory appeared to be dozing, Carelli moved to the front of the settee, and sat next to Lucia. In low, urgent tones, he muttered, ‘Have you done what I asked?’
Her voice even lower, almost a whisper, Lucia said desperately, ‘Have you no pity?’
‘Have you done what I told you to?’ Carelli asked more insistently.
‘I – I –’ Lucia began,