"Jack Mann - Her Ways Are Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mann Jack)

He spread his very large but well-shaped hands out on the tablecloth, cocked his cigarette holder at
an angle beside his long nose, and reflected. Eve Madeleine, his secretaryтАФMiss Brandon, when he
addressed her, and тАЬEve MadeleineтАЭ only in her absenceтАФhad looked up this Naylor person for him,
and had ascertained that he was what Gees would have called a big noise in Nigerian tin. That is to say,
he was not a mere landowner, like GeesтАЩ own father, finding his possessions more liabilities than assets. It
appeared that, if he wanted a thing, he could afford to pay for it, which for a man living in a country
mansion designated as тАЬhallтАЭ is a rare thing today.
Unmarried, aged forty-five, member of QuinlonтАЩs, one of the most exclusive clubs in London, also of
the Junior CountiesтАФthat caravanserai of elderly boresтАФand a fellow of two societies entitled to call
themselves тАЬRoyal,тАЭ he appeared enviably placed. All these things, and some others which for the
moment Gees forgot, the highly efficient and also very attractive Eve Madeleine had dug out and placed
before her employer, and then, lacking other occupation at the time, had gone back to her desk and got
on reading Winston ChurchillтАЩs monumental work on his ancestor, Marlborough. She had read so many
novels to pass the time in that Little Oakfield Street office that she was satiated with fiction, and so turned
to more serious stuff.
Now, having considered the potentialities of this possible client, Gees called for and paid his bill, after
which he pushed back his chair and got up, displaying a pair of feet which hinted, to say the least of it,
that he ought not to have resigned from the police force. Presently, one of those noteworthy though not
abnormally large feet was playing on the accelerator pedal of the grey, black-winged Rolls-Bentley which
helped to prove that Gees had made a financial success of his first case, and the nose of the open car
pointed southeast by south as its ownerтАФand driverтАФcogitated over the man who had written that letter.
That is to say, he cogitated part of the time.
For this way, after he had got well out from Yeovil, lay over the downlands that, perhaps, are richest
in all that history of Britain which is so old as to be out of history, and, a sensitive, as he undoubtedly
was, he felt the influences by which he was surrounded. For there on the downs sleep the very old dead,
the first reasoning beings to tread and hunt and fight over the land which then was part of EuropeтАФwhen
Dover cliffs and Gris-Nez facing them reared high and distant over the river that flowed toward the fertile
valleys now lying fathoms down under the English Channel.
Sometimes they sleep uneasily, those old ones Gees, driving past their resting places, sensed their
unease, felt them as not dead at all, but sentient, watchfulтАФof what? He put that question to himself as
the letter in his pocket recurred to his mind. It was the letter of a pedant, almost, of a man careful of his
words, of his dignityтАФover-careful of all that maintained him in his placeтАж
Trois arbres. The three trees would have vanished, long since. They had probably rotted away ages
before Naylors got hold of the hallтАФthanks to Eve Madeleine, Gees knew that Naylors had inhabited
there since the days of the second Charles. Admirable girl, Eve Madeleine. She got just the facts he
wanted, the things that facilitated his quest for atmosphere.
This NaylorтАж Gees told himself that he was in danger of going to this interview with a prejudice
against the man. Something in the phrasing of that letter was ruffling, irritant. He sensed pomposityтАж
And saw, on a signpost, Troyarbour, 3. Blandford, 15. Indicating that the village was twelve miles
distant from its post town. Well, these Dorset villages were widely spacedтАФit was not a populous
county. The open downland stretched for miles with hardly a house in view, and such towns as existed,
like Blandford, snuggled down in the valleys for the sake of waterтАФand, secondarily, for shelter.
Another signpost, marking the divergence of a mere lane from the well tended road Gees had so far
followed, bore the legend, Troyarbour Only. No Through Road. He took to the lane, and eased his
rate of travel for the sake of his springs and shock-absorbers. Ruts had been partly filled in with granite
chips, loose and crunchy under the tires of the car. There was width for vehicles to pass each other only
at intervals, and, if two met between the widenings, one or other would be compelled to back. The lane