Towards Zero - Agatha Christie [32]
“Instructive?” Nevile raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Information re the Malay States,” suggested Ted, smiling broadly. “Hard work dragging answers out of Taciturn Thomas.”
“Extraordinary fellow, Royde,” said Nevile. “I believe he’s always been the same. Just smokes that awful old pipe of his and listens and says Um and Ah occasionally and looks wise like an owl.”
“Perhaps he thinks the more,” said Mr. Treves. “And now I really must take my leave.”
“Come and see Lady Tressilian again soon,” said Nevile as he accompanied the two men to the hall. “You cheer her up enormously. She has so few contacts now with the outside world. She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”
“Yes, indeed. A most stimulating conversationalist.”
Mr. Treves dressed himself carefully with overcoat and muffler, and after renewed goodnights he and Ted Latimer set out together.
The Balmoral Court was actually only about a hundred yards away, around one curve of the road. It loomed up prim and forbidding, the first outpost of the straggling country street.
The ferry, where Ted Latimer was bound, was two or three hundred yards farther down, at a point where the river was at its narrowest.
Mr. Treves stopped at the door of the Balmoral Court and held out his hand.
“Goodnight, Mr. Latimer. You are staying down here much longer?”
Ted smiled with a flash of white teeth. “That depends, Mr. Treves. I haven’t had time to be bored—yet.”
“No—no, so I should imagine. I suppose like most young people nowadays, boredom is what you dread most in the world, and yet, I can assure you, there are worse things.”
“Such as?”
Ted Latimer’s voice was soft and pleasant, but it held an undercurrent of something else—something not quite so easy to define.
“Oh, I leave it to your imagination, Mr. Latimer. I would not presume to give you advice, you know. The advice of such elderly fogeys as myself is invariably treated with scorn. Rightly so, perhaps, who knows? But we old buffers like to think that experience has taught us something. We have noticed a good deal, you know, in the course of a lifetime.”
A cloud had come over the face of the moon. The street was very dark. Out of the darkness a man’s figure came towards them walking up the hill.
It was Thomas Royde.
“Just been down to the ferry for a bit of a walk,” he said indistinctly because of the pipe clenched between his teeth.
“This your pub?” he asked Mr. Treves. “Looks as though you were locked out.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Mr. Treves.
He turned the big brass door knob and the door swung back.
“We’ll see you safely in,” said Royde.
The three of them entered the hall. It was dimly lit with only one electric light. There was no one to be seen, and an odour of bygone dinner, rather dusty velvet, and good furniture polish met their nostrils.
Suddenly Mr. Treves gave an exclamation of annoyance.
On the lift in front of them hung a notice:
LIFT OUT OF ORDER
“Dear me,” said Mr. Treves. “How extremely vexing. I shall have to walk up all those stairs.”
“Too bad,” said Royde. “Isn’t there a service lift—luggage—all that?”
“I’m afraid not. This one is used for all purposes. Well I must take it slowly, that is all. Goodnight to you both.”
He started slowly up the wide staircase. Royde and Latimer wished him goodnight, then let themselves out into the dark street.
There was a moment’s pause, then Royde said abruptly:
“Well, goodnight.”
“Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Ted Latimer strode lightly down the hill towards the ferry. Thomas Royde stood looking after him for a moment, then he walked slowly in the opposite direction towards Gull’s Point.
The moon came out from behind the cloud and Saltcreek was once more bathed in silvery radiance.
VII
“Just like summer,” murmured Mary Aldin.
She and Audrey were sitting on the beach just below the imposing edifice of the Easterhead Bay Hotel. Audrey wore a white swimsuit and looked like a delicate ivory figure. Mary had not bathed. A little way along from them Kay lay on her face exposing her bronzed limbs and back