Secret of Chimneys - Agatha Christie [78]
‘Only if they’re exceptionally beautiful,’ admitted Anthony.
‘Well, in this case–’ she broke off. ‘What’s the matter?’
Anthony was staring at a figure which detached itself from the clump of trees and stood there rigidly at attention. It was the Herzoslovakian, Boris.
‘Excuse me,’ said Anthony to Virginia, ‘I must just speak to my dog a minute.’
He went across to where Boris was standing.
‘What’s the matter? What do you want?’
‘Master,’ said Boris, bowing.
‘Yes, that’s all very well, but you mustn’t keep following me about like this. It looks odd.’
Without a word, Boris produced a soiled scrap of paper, evidently torn from a letter, and handed it to Anthony.
‘What’s this?’ said Anthony.
There was an address scrawled on the paper, nothing else.
‘He dropped it,’ said Boris. ‘I bring it to the master.’
‘Who dropped it?’
‘The foreign gentleman.’
‘But why bring it to me?’
Boris looked at him reproachfully.
‘Well, anyway, go away now,’ said Anthony. ‘I’m busy.’
Boris saluted, turning sharply on his heel, and marched away. Anthony rejoined Virginia, thrusting the piece of paper into his pocket.
‘What did he want?’ she asked curiously. ‘And why do you call him your dog?’
‘Because he acts like one,’ said Anthony, answering the last question first. ‘He must have been a retriever in his last incarnation, I think. He’s just brought me a piece of a letter which he says the foreign gentleman dropped. I suppose he means Lemoine.’
‘I suppose so,’ acquiesced Virginia.
‘He’s always following me round,’ continued Anthony. ‘Just like a dog. Says next to nothing. Just looks at me with his big round eyes. I can’t make him out.’
‘Perhaps he meant Isaacstein,’ suggested Virginia. ‘Isaacstein looks foreign enough, heaven knows.’
‘Isaacstein,’ muttered Anthony impatiently. ‘Where the devil does he come in?’
‘Are you ever sorry that you’ve mixed yourself up in all this?’ asked Virginia suddenly.
‘Sorry? Good Lord, no. I love it. I’ve spent most of my life looking for trouble, you know. Perhaps, this time, I’ve got a little more than I bargained for.’
‘But you’re well out of the wood now,’ said Virginia, a little surprised by the unusual gravity of his tone.
‘Not quite.’
They strolled on for a minute or two in silence.
‘There are some people,’ said Anthony, breaking the silence, ‘who don’t conform to the signals. An ordinary well-regulated locomotive slows down or pulls up when it sees the red light hoisted against it. Perhaps I was born colour-blind. When I see the red signal–I can’t help forging ahead. And in the end, you know, that spells disaster. Bound to. And quite right really. That sort of thing is bad for traffic generally.’
He still spoke very seriously.
‘I suppose,’ said Virginia, ‘that you have taken a good many risks in your life?’
‘Pretty nearly every one there is–except marriage.’
‘That’s rather cynical.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be. Marriage, the kind of marriage I mean, would be the biggest adventure of the lot.’
‘I like that,’ said Virginia, flushing eagerly.
‘There’s only one kind of woman I’d want to marry–the kind who is worlds removed from my type of life. What would we do about it? Is she to lead my life, or am I to lead hers?’
‘If she loved you–’
‘Sentimentality, Mrs Revel. You know it is. Love isn’t a drug that you take to blind you to your surroundings–you can make it that, yes, but it’s a pity–love can be a lot more than that. What do you think the King and his beggarmaid thought of married life after they’d been married a year or two? Didn’t she regret her rags and her bare feet and her carefree life? You bet she did. Would it have been any good his renouncing his crown for her sake? Not a bit of good, either. He’d have made a damned bad beggar, I’m sure. And no woman respects a man when he’s doing a thing thoroughly badly.’
‘Have you fallen in love with a beggarmaid, Mr Cade?’ inquired Virginia softly.
‘It’s the other way about with