"Dexter, Colin - Inspector Morse 01 - Last Bus to Woodstock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dexter Colin)

once-peaceful churchyard of nearby Bladon village.
Today Blenheim dominates the old town. Yet it was not always so. The strong grey houses which
line the main street have witnessed older times and could tell their older tales, though now the majority
are sprucely converted into gift, antique and souvenir shops - and inns. There was always, it appears, a
goodly choice of hostelries, and several of the hotels and inns now clustered snugly along the streets
can boast not only an ancient lineage but also a cluster of black AA stars on their bright yellow signs.
The Black Prince is situated half-way down a broad side-street to the left as one is journeying north.
Amidst the Woodstock peerage it can claim no ancient pedigree, and it seems highly improbable, alas,
that the warrior son of King Edward III had ever laughed or cried or tippled or wenched in any of its
precincts. Truth to tell, a director of the London company which bought the old house, stable-yards and
all, some ten years since, had noticed in some dubiously authenticated guidebook that somewhere
thereabouts the Prince was born. The director had been warmly congratulated by his Board for this
felicitous piece of research, and not less for his subsequent discovery that the noble Prince did not as
yet figure in the Woodstock telephone directory. The Black Prince it was then. The gifted daughter of
the first manager had copied out from a children's encyclopaedia, in suitably antique script, a brief, if
somewhat romantic, biography of the warrior Prince, and put the finished opus into her mother's oven
for half an hour at 450░. The resultant manuscript, reverently brown with age, was neatly, if cheaply,
framed and now occupied a suitable position of honour on the wall of the cocktail lounge. Together
with the shields of the Oxford colleges nailed neatly along the low stained beams, it added tone and
class.
For the last two and a half years Gaye had been the resident 'hostess' of the Black Prince -
'barmaid', thought the manager, was a trifle infra dignitatem. And he had a point. 'A pint of your best
bitter, luv,' was a request Gaye seldom had to meet and she now associated it with the proletariat; here
it was more often vodka and lime for the bright young things, Manhattan cocktails for the American
tourists, and gin and French - with a splash of Italian - for the Oxford dons. Such admixtures she
dispensed with practised confidence from the silvery glitter and sparkle of bottles ranged invitingly
behind the bar.
The lounge itself, deeply carpeted, with chairs and wall-seats covered in a pleasing orange shade,
was gently bathed in half light, giving a chiaroscuro effect reminiscent, it was hoped, of a Rembrandt
nativity scene. Gaye herself was an attractive, auburn-haired girl and tonight, Wednesday, she was
immaculately dressed in a black trouser-suit and white-frilled blouse. A flash of gems on the second
and third fingers of her left hand, betokened gentle warning to the mawkish amateur playboy, and
perhaps - as some maintained - a calculated invitation to the wealthy professional philanderer. She was,
in fact, married and divorced, and now lived with one young son and a mother who was not unduly
chagrined at the mildly promiscuous habits of a precious daughter who had been unfortunate enough to
marry such 'a lousy swine'. Gaye enjoyed her divorced status as much as she enjoyed her job, and she
meant to keep them both.
Wednesday, as usual, had been a fairly busy evening, and it was with some relief when, at 10.25
p.m., she politely, but firmly, called for last drinks. A young man, seated on a high stool at the inner
corner of the bar, pushed his whisky glass forward.
'Same again.'
Gaye glanced quizzically into unsteady eyes, but said nothing. She pushed her customer's glass
under a priority whisky bottle and placed it on the counter, holding out her right hand and mechanically
registering the tariff with her left. The young man was obviously drunk. He fumbled slowly and
ineffectually through his pockets before finding the correct money, and after one mouthful of his drink
he eased himself gingerly off his seat, measured the door with an uncertain eye, and made a line as
decently straight as could in the circumstances be expected.
The old courtyard where once the horses had clattered over the cobbled stones had access from the
street through a narrow archway, and had proved an invaluable asset to the Black Prince. A rash of
fines for trespassing on the single and double yellow lines which bordered even the most inhospitable