Причуда мертвеца / Dead Man's Folly. Книга для чтения на английском языке

’

�I know, Madame, that you are always full of ingenuity,

but I do not quite see—’

Mrs Oliver interrupted him.

�Oh, but of course,’ she said, �there’s a story. Like in a magazine serial—a synopsis.’ She turned to Captain Warburton. �Have you got the leaflets?’

�They’ve not come from the printers yet.’

�But they promised!’

�I know. I know. Everyone always promises. They’ll be ready this evening at six. I’m going in to fetch them in the car.’

�Oh, good.

Mrs Oliver gave a deep sigh and turned to Poirot.

�Well, I’ll have to tell it you, then. Only I’m not very good at telling things. I mean if I write things, I get them perfectly clear, but if I talk, it always sounds the most frightful muddle; and that’s why I never discuss my plots with anyone. I’ve learnt not to, because if I do, they just look at me blankly and say “—er—yes, but—I don’t see what happened—and surely that can’t possibly make a book.” So damping.

Mrs Oliver paused for breath, and then went on:

�Well, it’s like this. There’s Peter Gaye who’s a young Atom Scientist and he’s suspected of being in the pay of the Communists, and he’s married to this girl, Joan Blunt, and his first wife’s dead, but she isn’t, and she turns up because she’s a secret agent, or perhaps not, I mean she may really be a hiker—and the wife’s having an affair, and this man Loyola turns up either to meet Maya, or to spy upon her, and there’s a blackmailing letter which might be from the housekeeper, or again it might be the butler, and the revolver’s missing, and as you don’t know who the blackmailing letter’s to, and the hypodermic syringe[53 - hypodermic syringe – шприц для подкожных инъекций] fell out at dinner, and after that it disappeared…’

Mrs Oliver came to a full stop, estimating correctly Poirot’s reaction.

�I know,’ she said sympathetically. �It sounds just a muddle, but it isn’t really—not in my head—and when you see the synopsis leaflet, you’ll find it’s quite clear.

�And, anyway,’ she ended, �the story doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, not to you. All you’ve got to do is to present the prizes—very nice prizes, the first’s a silver cigarette case shaped like a revolver—and say how remarkably clever the solver has been.