Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [94]
‘You are sure that–I can’t come with you?’ he said wistfully.
She shook her head.
‘You’ll be much more comfortable in the back of the other car. Nicely padded seats and all that. This is a regular old rattle trap. You’d leap in the air going over the bumps.’
‘And then, of course, the hills.’
Naomi laughed.
‘Oh, I only said that to rescue you from the dickey. The Duchess could perfectly well afford to have hired a car. She’s the meanest woman in England. All the same, the old thing is rather a sport, and I can’t help liking her.’
‘Then I could come with you after all?’ said Mr Satterthwaite eagerly.
She looked at him curiously.
‘Why are you so anxious to come with me?’
‘Can you ask?’ Mr Satterthwaite made his funny old-fashioned bow.
She smiled, but shook her head.
‘That isn’t the reason,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s odd…But you can’t come with me–not today.’
‘Another day, perhaps,’ suggested Mr Satterthwaite politely.
‘Oh, another day!’ she laughed suddenly, a very queer laugh, Mr Satterthwaite thought. ‘Another day! Well, we’ll see.’
They started. They drove through the town, and then round the long curve of the bay, winding inland to cross a river and then back to the coast with its hundreds of little sandy coves. And then they began to climb. In and out, round nerve-shattering curves, upwards, ever upwards on the tortuous winding road. The blue bay was far below them, and on the other side of it Ajaccio sparkled in the sun, white, like a fairy city.
In and out, in and out, with a precipice first one side of them, then the other. Mr Satterthwaite felt slightly giddy, he also felt slightly sick. The road was not very wide. And still they climbed.
It was cold now. The wind came to them straight off the snow peaks. Mr Satterthwaite turned up his coat collar and buttoned it tightly under his chin.
It was very cold. Across the water, Ajaccio was still bathed in sunlight, but up here thick grey clouds came drifting across the face of the sun. Mr Satterthwaite ceased to admire the view. He yearned for a steam-heated hotel and a comfortable armchair.
Ahead of them Naomi’s little two-seater drove steadily forward. Up, still up. They were on top of the world now. On either side of them were lower hills, hills sloping down to valleys. They looked straight across to the snow peaks. And the wind came tearing over them, sharp, like a knife. Suddenly Naomi’s car stopped, and she looked back.
‘We’ve arrived,’ she said. ‘At the World’s End. And I don’t think it’s an awfully good day for it.’
They all got out. They had arrived in a tiny village, with half a dozen stone cottages. An imposing name was printed in letters a foot high.
‘Coti Chiaveeri.’
Naomi shrugged her shoulders.
‘That’s its official name, but I prefer to call it the World’s End.’
She walked on a few steps, and Mr Satterthwaite joined her. They were beyond the houses now. The road stopped. As Naomi had said, this was the end, the back of beyond, the beginning of nowhere. Behind them the white ribbon of the road, in front of them–nothing. Only far, far below, the sea…
Mr Satterthwaite drew a deep breath.
‘It’s an extraordinary place. One feels that anything might happen here, that one might meet–anyone–’
He stopped, for just in front of them a man was sitting on a boulder, his face turned to the sea. They had not seen him till this moment, and his appearance had the suddenness of a conjuring trick. He might have sprung from the surrounding landscape.
‘I wonder–’ began Mr Satterthwaite.
But at that minute the stranger turned, and Mr Satterthwaite saw his face.
‘Why, Mr Quin! How extraordinary. Miss Carlton Smith, I want to introduce my friend Mr Quin to you. He’s the most unusual fellow. You are, you know. You always turn up in the nick of time–’
He stopped, with the feeling that he had said something awkwardly significant, and yet for the life of him he could not think what it was.
Naomi had shaken hands with Mr Quin in her usual abrupt style.
‘We’re here for a picnic,’ she said. ‘And it seems to me we shall