Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [101]
‘Sometimes I do,’ said Mr Quin.
His voice held a new note. In spite of himself Mr Satterthwaite shivered a little. The afternoon, he thought, must be growing chilly. And yet the sun seemed as bright as ever.
At that moment a girl turned the corner ahead of them and came into sight. She was a very pretty girl, fair-haired and blue-eyed, wearing a pink cotton frock. Mr Satterthwaite recognized her as Molly Stanwell, whom he had met down here before.
She waved a hand to welcome him.
‘John and Anna have just gone back,’ she cried. ‘They thought you must have come, but they simply had to be at the rehearsal.’
‘Rehearsal of what?’ inquired Mr Satterthwaite.
‘This masquerade thing–I don’t quite know what you’ll call it. There is singing and dancing and all sorts of things in it. Mr Manly, do you remember him down here? He had quite a good tenor voice, is to be Pierrot, and I am Pierrette. Two professionals are coming down for the dancing–Harlequin and Columbine, you know. And then there is a big chorus of girls. Lady Roscheimer is so keen on training village girls to sing. She’s really getting the thing up for that. The music is rather lovely–but very modern–next to no tune anywhere. Claude Wickam. Perhaps you know him?’
Mr Satterthwaite nodded, for, as has been mentioned before, it was his métier to know everybody. He knew all about that aspiring genius Claude Wickam, and about Lady Roscheimer who was a fat Jewess with a penchant for young men of the artistic persuasion. And he knew all about Sir Leopold Roscheimer who liked his wife to be happy and, most rare among husbands, did not mind her being happy in her own way.
They found Claude Wickam at tea with the Denmans, cramming his mouth indiscriminately with anything handy, talking rapidly, and waving long white hands that had a double-jointed appearance. His short-sighted eyes peered through large horn-rimmed spectacles.
John Denman, upright, slightly florid, with the faintest possible tendency to sleekness, listened with an air of bored attention. On the appearance of Mr Satterthwaite, the musician transferred his remarks to him. Anna Denman sat behind the tea things, quiet and expressionless as usual.
Mr Satterthwaite stole a covert glance at her. Tall, gaunt, very thin, with the skin tightly stretched over high cheek bones, black hair parted in the middle, a skin that was weather-beaten. An out of door woman who cared nothing for the use of cosmetics. A Dutch Doll of a woman, wooden, lifeless–and yet…
He thought: ‘There should be meaning behind that face, and yet there isn’t. That’s what’s all wrong. Yes, all wrong.’ And to Claude Wickam he said: ‘I beg your pardon? You were saying?’
Claude Wickam, who liked the sound of his own voice, began all over again. ‘Russia,’ he said, ‘that was the only country in the world worth being interested in. They experimented. With lives, if you like, but still they experimented. Magnificent!’ He crammed a sandwich into his mouth with one hand, and added a bite of the chocolate éclair he was waving about in the other. ‘Take,’ he said (with his mouth full), ‘the Russian Ballet.’ Remembering his hostess, he turned to her. What did she think of the Russian Ballet?
The question was obviously only a prelude to the important point–what Claude Wickam thought of the Russian Ballet, but her answer was unexpected and threw him completely out of his stride.
‘I have never seen it.’
‘What?’ He gazed at her open-mouthed. ‘But–surely–’
Her voice went on, level and emotionless.
‘Before my marriage, I was a dancer. So now–’
‘A busman’s holiday,’ said her husband.
‘Dancing.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I know all the tricks of it. It does not interest me.’
‘Oh!’
It took but a moment for Claude to recover his aplomb. His voice went on.
‘Talking of lives,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘and experimenting in them. The Russian nation made one costly experiment.’
Claude Wickam swung round on him.
‘I know what you are going to say,’ he cried. ‘Kharsanova! The immortal, the only Kharsanova! You saw her dance?’
‘Three times,’ said Mr