The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie [47]
He conversed rather awkwardly with Bundle in stilted English and they both welcomed the interruption of the joyous Mr O’Rourke. Presently Bill bustled in–there is no other word for it: in the same such way does a favoured Newfoundland make his entrance–and at once came over to Bundle. He was looking perplexed and harassed.
‘Hullo, Bundle. Heard you’d got here. Been kept with my nose to the grindstone all the blessed afternoon or I’d have seen you before.’
‘Cares of State heavy to-night?’ suggested O’Rourke sympathetically.
Bill groaned.
‘I don’t know what your fellow’s like,’ he complained. ‘Looks a good-natured, tubby little chap. But Codders is absolutely impossible. Drive, drive, drive, from morning to night. Everything you do is wrong, and everything you haven’t done you ought to have done.’
‘Quite like a quotation from the prayer book,’ remarked Jimmy, who had just strolled up.
Bill glanced at him reproachfully.
‘Nobody knows,’ he said pathetically, ‘what I have to put up with.’
‘Entertaining the Countess, eh?’ suggested Jimmy. ‘Poor Bill, that must have been a sad strain to a woman hater like yourself.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Bundle.
‘After tea,’ said Jimmy with a grin, ‘the Countess asked Bill to show her round the interesting old place.’
‘Well, I couldn’t refuse, could I?’ said Bill, his countenance assuming a brick-red tint.
Bundle felt faintly uneasy. She knew, only too well, the susceptibility of Mr William Eversleigh to female charms. In the hand of a woman like the Countess, Bill would be as wax. She wondered once more whether Jimmy Thesiger had been wise to take Bill into their confidence.
‘The Countess,’ said Bill, ‘is a very charming woman. And no end intelligent. You should have seen her going round the house. All sorts of questions she asked.’
‘What kind of questions?’ asked Bundle suddenly.
Bill was vague.
‘Oh! I don’t know. About the history of it. And old furniture. And–oh! all sorts of things.’
At that moment the Countess swept into the room. She seemed a shade breathless. She was looking magnificent in a close-fitting black velvet gown. Bundle noticed how Bill gravitated at once to her immediate neighbourhood. The serious spectacled young man joined him.
‘Bill and Pongo have both got it badly,’ observed Jimmy Thesiger with a laugh.
Bundle was by no means so sure that it was a laughing matter.
Chapter 17
After Dinner
George was not a believer in modern innovations. The Abbey was innocent of anything so up to date as central heating. Consequently, when the ladies entered the drawing-room after dinner, the temperature of the room was woefully inadequate to the needs of modern evening clothes. The fire that burnt in the well-furnished steel grate became as a magnet. The three women huddled round it.
‘Brrrrrrrrrr!’ said the Countess, a fine, exotic foreign sound.
‘The days are drawing in,’ said Lady Coote, and drew a flowered atrocity of a scarf closer about her ample shoulders.
‘Why on earth doesn’t George have the house properly heated?’ said Bundle.
‘You English, you never heat your houses,’ said the Countess.
She took out her long cigarette holder and began to smoke.
‘That grate is old-fashioned,’ said Lady Coote. ‘The heat goes up the chimney instead of into the room.’
‘Oh!’ said the Countess.
There was a pause. The Countess was so plainly bored by her company that conversation became difficult.
‘It’s funny,’ said Lady Coote, breaking the silence, ‘that Mrs Macatta’s children should have mumps. At least, I don’t mean exactly funny–’
‘What,’ said the Countess, ‘are mumps?’
Bundle and Lady Coote started simultaneously to explain. Finally, between them, they managed it.
‘I suppose Hungarian children have it?’ asked Lady Coote.
‘Eh?’ said the Countess.
‘Hungarian children. They suffer from it?’
‘I do not know,