Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [4]
‘This is Market Cleve three-one-four. I want you to get me a London number.’ He gave the number, then sat back, waiting. The fingers of his right hand began to drum nervously on the desk.
II
Several minutes later, Sir Claud Amory joined the dinner-party, taking his place at the head of the table around which the six others were already seated. On Sir Claud’s right sat his niece, Barbara Amory, with Richard, her cousin and the only son of Sir Claud, next to her. On Richard Amory’s right was a house-guest, Dr Carelli, an Italian. Continuing round, at the opposite end of the table to Sir Claud, sat Caroline Amory, his sister. A middle-aged spinster, she had run Sir Claud’s house for him ever since his wife died some years earlier. Edward Raynor, Sir Claud’s secretary, sat on Miss Amory’s right, with Lucia, Richard Amory’s wife, between him and the head of the household.
Dinner, on this occasion, was not at all festive. Caroline Amory made several attempts at small-talk with Dr Carelli, who answered her politely enough without offering much in the way of conversation himself. When she turned to address a remark to Edward Raynor, that normally polite and socially suave young man gave a nervous start, mumbled an apology and looked embarrassed. Sir Claud was as taciturn as he normally was at meal-times, or perhaps even more so. Richard Amory cast an occasional anxious glance across the table at his wife, Lucia. Barbara Amory alone seemed in good spirits, and made spasmodic light conversation with her Aunt Caroline.
It was while Tredwell was serving the dessert course that Sir Claud suddenly addressed the butler, speaking loudly enough for all at the dinner-table to hear his words.
‘Tredwell,’ he said, ‘would you ring Jackson’s garage in Market Cleve, and ask them to send a car and driver to the station to meet the eight-fifty from London? A gentleman who is visiting us after dinner will be coming by that train.’
‘Very well, Sir Claud,’ replied Tredwell as he left. He was barely out of the room when Lucia, with a murmured apology, got up abruptly from the table and hurried out, almost colliding with the butler as he was about to close the door behind him.
Crossing the hall, she hurried along the corridor and proceeded to the large room at the back of the house. The library – as it was generally called – served normally as a drawing-room as well. It was a comfortable room rather than an elegant one. French windows opened from it on to the terrace, and another door led to Sir Claud’s study. On the mantelpiece, above a large open fireplace, stood an old-fashioned clock and some ornaments, as well as a vase of spills for use in lighting the fire.
The library furniture consisted of a tall bookcase with a tin box on the top of it, a desk with a telephone on it, a stool, a small table with a gramophone and records, a settee, a coffee table, an occasional table with book-ends and books on it, two upright chairs, an arm-chair, and another table on which stood a plant in a brass pot. The furniture in general was old-fashioned, but not sufficiently old or distinguished to be admired as antique.
Lucia, a beautiful young woman of twenty-five, had luxuriant dark hair which flowed to her shoulders, and brown eyes which could flash excitingly but were now smouldering with a suppressed emotion not easy to define. She hesitated in the middle of the room, then crossed to the french windows and, parting the curtains slightly, looked out at the night. Uttering a barely audible sigh, she pressed her brow to the cool glass of the window, and stood lost in thought.
Miss Amory’s voice could be heard outside in the hall, calling, ‘Lucia – Lucia – where are you?’ A moment later, Miss Amory, a somewhat fussy elderly lady a few years older than her brother, entered the room. Going across to Lucia, she took the younger woman by the arm and propelled her towards the settee.
‘There, my dear. You sit down here,’ she said, pointing to a corner of the settee. ‘You’ll be all right