Spider's Web - Agatha Christie [1]
‘There you are, Hugo,’ Sir Rowland declared as he finished tying the blindfold over his companion’s eyes. ‘Perhaps I ought to turn you around three times like they do in Blind Man’s Buff,’ he added as he led Hugo to the armchair and turned him around to sit in it.
‘Here, steady on,’ Hugo protested. He felt behind him for the chair.
‘Got it?’ asked Sir Rowland.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll swivel the glasses around instead,’ Sir Rowland said as he moved the glasses on the table slightly.
‘There’s no need to,’ Hugo told him. ‘Do you think I’m likely to be influenced by what you said? I’m as good a judge of port as you are any day, Roly, my boy.’
‘Don’t be too sure of that. In any case, one can’t be too careful,’ Sir Rowland insisted.
Just as he was about to take one of the glasses across to Hugo, the third of the Hailsham-Browns’ guests came in from the garden. Jeremy Warrender, an attractive young man in his twenties, was wearing a raincoat over his suit. Panting, and obviously out of breath, he headed for the sofa and was about to flop into it when he noticed what was going on. ‘What on earth are you two up to?’ he asked, as he removed his raincoat and jacket. ‘The three-card trick with glasses?’
‘What’s that?’ the blindfolded Hugo wanted to know. ‘It sounds as though someone’s brought a dog into the room.’
‘It’s only young Warrender,’ Sir Rowland assured him. ‘Behave yourself.’
‘Oh, I thought it sounded like a dog that’s been chasing a rabbit,’ Hugo declared.
‘I’ve been three times to the lodge gates and back, wearing a mackintosh over my clothes,’ Jeremy explained as he fell heavily onto the sofa. ‘Apparently the Herzoslovakian Minister did it in four minutes fifty-three seconds, weighed down by his mackintosh. I went all out, but I couldn’t do any better than six minutes ten seconds. And I don’t believe he did, either. Only Chris Chattaway himself could do it in that time, with or without a mackintosh.’
‘Who told you that about the Herzoslovakian Minister?’ Sir Rowland enquired.
‘Clarissa.’
‘Clarissa!’ exclaimed Sir Rowland, chuckling.
‘Oh, Clarissa.’ Hugo snorted. ‘You shouldn’t pay any attention to what Clarissa tells you.’
Still chuckling, Sir Rowland continued, ‘I’m afraid you don’t know your hostess very well, Warrender. She’s a young lady with a very vivid imagination.’
Jeremy rose to his feet. ‘Do you mean she made the whole thing up?’ he asked, indignantly.
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past her,’ Sir Rowland answered as he handed one of the three glasses to the still blindfolded Hugo. ‘And it certainly sounds like her idea of a joke.’
‘Does it, indeed? You just wait till I see that young woman,’ Jeremy promised. ‘I’ll certainly have something to say to her. Gosh, I’m exhausted.’ He stalked out to the hall carrying his raincoat.
‘Stop puffing like a walrus,’ Hugo complained. ‘I’m trying to concentrate. There’s a fiver at stake. Roly and I have got a bet on.’
‘Oh, what is it?’ Jeremy enquired, returning to perch on an arm of the sofa.
‘It’s to decide who’s the best judge of port,’ Hugo told him. ‘We’ve got Cockburn ’twenty-seven, Dow ’forty-two, and the local grocer’s special. Quiet now. This is important.’ He sipped from the glass he was holding, and then murmured rather non-committally, ‘Mmm-ah.’
‘Well?’ Sir Roland queried. ‘Have you decided what the first one is?’
‘Don’t hustle me, Roly,’ Hugo exclaimed. ‘I’m not going to rush my fences. Where’s the next one?’
He held on to the glass as he was handed another. He sipped and then announced, ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure about those two.’ He sniffed at both glasses again. ‘This first one’s the Dow,’ he decided as he held out one glass. ‘The second was the Cockburn,’ he continued, handing the other glass back as Sir Rowland repeated, ‘Number three glass the Dow, number one the Cockburn’, writing as he spoke.
‘Well, it’s hardly necessary to taste the third,’ Hugo declared, ‘but I suppose I’d better go through with it.’
‘Here you are,’ said Sir Rowland, handing over the final glass.
After sipping from it, Hugo made an exclamation