Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [28]
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘We’re capable of doing big things. We were good at running an empire. We weren’t good at keeping an empire running, but then you see we didn’t need an empire any more And we recognized that. Too difficult to keep up. Robbie made me see that,’ she added.
‘Robbie?’ It was faintly familiar.
‘Robbie Shoreham. Robert Shoreham. He’s a very old friend of mine. Paralysed down the left side. But he can talk still and he’s got a moderately good hearing-aid.’
‘Besides being one of the most famous physicists in the world,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘So he’s another of your old cronies, is he?’
‘Known him since he was a boy,’ said Lady Matilda. ‘I suppose it surprises you that we should be friends, have a lot in common and enjoy talking together?’
‘Well, I shouldn’t have thought that–’
‘That we had much to talk about? It’s true I could never do mathematics. Fortunately, when I was a girl one didn’t even try. Mathematics came easily to Robbie when he was about four years old, I believe. They say nowadays that that’s quite natural. He’s got plenty to talk about. He liked me always because I was frivolous and made him laugh. And I’m a good listener, too. And really, he says some very interesting things sometimes.’
‘So I suppose,’ said Stafford Nye drily.
‘Now don’t be superior. Molière married his housemaid, didn’t he, and made a great success of it–if it is Molière I mean. If a man’s frantic with brains he doesn’t really want a woman who’s also frantic with brains to talk to. It would be exhausting. He’d much prefer a lovely nitwit who can make him laugh. I wasn’t bad-looking when I was young,’ said Lady Matilda complacently. ‘I know I have no academic distinctions. I’m not in the least intellectual. But Robert has always said that I’ve got a great deal of common sense, of intelligence.’
‘You’re a lovely person,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘I enjoy coming to see you and I shall go away remembering all the things you’ve said to me. There are a good many more things, I expect, that you could tell me but you’re obviously not going to.’
‘Not until the right moment comes,’ said Lady Matilda, ‘but I’ve got your interests at heart. Let me know what you’re doing from time to time. You’re dining at the American Embassy, aren’t you, next week?’
‘How did you know that? I’ve been asked.’
‘And you’ve accepted, I understand.’
‘Well, it’s all in the course of duty.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘How do you manage to be so well informed?’
‘Oh, Milly told me.’
‘Milly?’
‘Milly Jean Cortman. The American Ambassador’s wife. A most attractive creature, you know. Small and rather perfect-looking.’
‘Oh, you mean Mildred Cortman.’
‘She was christened Mildred but she preferred Milly Jean. I was talking to her on the telephone about some Charity Matinée or other–she’s what we used to call a pocket Venus.’
‘A most attractive term to use,’ said Stafford Nye.
Chapter 8
An Embassy Dinner
I
As Mrs Cortman came to meet him with outstretched hand, Stafford Nye recalled the term his great-aunt had used. Milly Jean Cortman was a woman of between thirty-five and forty. She had delicate features, big blue-grey eyes, a very perfectly shaped head with bluish-grey hair tinted to a particularly attractive shade which fitted her with a perfection of grooming. She was very popular in London. Her husband, Sam Cortman, was a big, heavy man, slightly ponderous. He was very proud of his wife. He himself was one of those slow, rather over-emphatic talkers. People found their attention occasionally straying when he was elucidating at some length a point which hardly needed making.
‘Back from Malaya, aren’t you, Sir Stafford? It must have been quite interesting to go out there, though it’s not the time of year I’d have chosen. But I’m sure we’re all glad to see you back. Let me see now. You know Lady Aldborough and Sir John, and Herr von Roken, Frau von Roken. Mr and Mrs Staggenham.