Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [92]
‘Last winter I was in Egypt,’ explained Mr Satterthwaite. ‘I had ’flu very badly the end of January, and the doctors insisted on Egypt afterwards. I missed a lot.’
His voice rang with a note of real regret.
‘That girl seems to me to be moping,’ said the Duchess, raising her lorgnette once more. ‘I can’t allow that.’
On her way out, she stopped by Miss Carlton Smith’s table and tapped the girl on the shoulder.
‘Well, Naomi, you don’t seem to remember me?’
Naomi rose rather unwillingly to her feet.
‘Yes, I do, Duchess. I saw you come in. I thought it was quite likely you mightn’t recognize me.’
She drawled the words lazily, with a complete indifference of manner.
‘When you’ve finished your lunch, come and talk to me on the terrace,’ ordered the Duchess.
‘Very well.’
Naomi yawned.
‘Shocking manners,’ said the Duchess, to Mr Satterthwaite, as she resumed her progress. ‘All the Carlton Smiths have.’
They had their coffee outside in the sunshine. They had been there about six minutes when Naomi Carlton Smith lounged out from the hotel and joined them. She let herself fall slackly on to a chair with her legs stretched out ungracefully in front of her.
An odd face, with its jutting chin and deep-set grey eyes. A clever, unhappy face–a face that only just missed being beautiful.
‘Well, Naomi,’ said the Duchess briskly. ‘And what are you doing with yourself?’
‘Oh, I dunno. Just marking time.’
‘Been painting?’
‘A bit.’
‘Show me your things.’
Naomi grinned. She was not cowed by the autocrat. She was amused. She went into the hotel and came out again with a portfolio.
‘You won’t like ’em, Duchess,’ she said warningly. ‘Say what you like. You won’t hurt my feelings.’
Mr Satterthwaite moved his chair a little nearer. He was interested. In another minute he was more interested still. The Duchess was frankly unsympathetic.
‘I can’t even see which way the things ought to be,’ she complained. ‘Good gracious, child, there was never a sky that colour–or a sea either.’
‘That’s the way I see ’em,’ said Naomi placidly.
‘Ugh!’ said the Duchess, inspecting another. ‘This gives me the creeps.’
‘It’s meant to,’ said Naomi. ‘You’re paying me a compliment without knowing it.’
It was a queer vorticist study of a prickly pear–just recognizable as such. Grey-green with slodges of violent colour where the fruit glittered like jewels. A swirling mass of evil, fleshy–festering. Mr Satterthwaite shuddered and turned his head aside.
He found Naomi looking at him and nodding her head in comprehension.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But it is beastly.’
The Duchess cleared her throat.
‘It seems quite easy to be an artist nowadays,’ she observed witheringly. ‘There’s no attempt to copy things. You just shovel on some paint–I don’t know what with, not a brush, I’m sure–’
‘Palette knife,’ interposed Naomi, smiling broadly once more.
‘A good deal at a time,’ continued the Duchess. ‘In lumps. And there you are! Everyone says: “How clever.” Well, I’ve no patience with that sort of thing. Give me–’
‘A nice picture of a dog or a horse, by Edwin Landseer.’
‘And why not?’ demanded the Duchess. ‘What’s wrong with Landseer?’
‘Nothing,’ said Naomi. ‘He’s all right. And you’re all right. The tops of things are always nice and shiny and smooth. I respect you, Duchess, you’ve got force. You’ve met life fair and square and you’ve come out on top. But the people who are underneath see the under side of things. And that’s interesting in a way.’
The Duchess stared at her.
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she declared.
Mr Satterthwaite was still examining the sketches. He realized, as the Duchess could not, the perfection of technique behind them. He was startled and delighted. He looked up at the girl.
‘Will you sell me one of these, Miss Carlton Smith?’ he asked.
‘You can have any one you like for five guineas,’ said the girl indifferently.
Mr Satterthwaite hesitated