"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 01 - Modesty Blaise" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)

Built-in shelves along part of one wall held books and records, with the satisfactory, slightly untidy look of usage. There was a hi-fi toward the end of the shelves, partly hidden by a Coromandel screen.
But it was to the rugs that Tarrant's eyes kept returning. They touched him with the same pleasurable melancholy as certain music, Les Prщludes of Liszt, perhaps.
Beside him he heard a long, reverent sigh from his companion.
"Hannibal's piles," breathed Fraser, who found relief from emotion in coarseness. "What a bloody setup."
Together they moved to the steps dividing the low wrought-iron balustrade. Fraser, himself again now, hugged his briefcase awkwardly and darted suspicious glances about him. From an open doorway on the right of the room there came the faint greenish glow of daylight fluorescent, and the soft hum of a small machine.
Tarrant put down his bowler hat and umbrella on a chair.
"I think you'd better cough, Fraser," he suggested.
"Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Fraser." The voice held a mellow timbre with a slight foreign inflexion. The intonation was cool but not unfriendly. She stood in the open doorway with the fluorescent light behind her. The face was smooth and calm, with high cheekbones under dark, contemplative eyes. She would be five foot six, Tarrant thought, but with the black hair drawn up into a chignon on the crown of her head she appeared taller.
Her skin held a soft, matte tan that would have made a fortune for any man who could get it into a bottle. Her mouth baffled Tarrant. Studied in isolation it was a touch too wide, but in the totality of her features a smaller mouth would have been wrong. Her neck, he decided, though magnificent, was definitely too long . . . but then again that wonderful poise of the head would have been marred by a shorter neck. Her legsЧ
No, dammit, they weren't too long. He wasn't going to fall into the same trap again. This girl was made to be looked at as a wholeЧand as often as possible, for preference. He was surprised to find that he had an urgent wish to see her smile. She wore a cling sweater in winter-white with a polo neck. The sleeves were pushed carelessly back almost to her elbows. It was tucked into a wine-red skirt of fine tweed, with pleats at each side and pocket flaps. The skirt was held by a broad black leather belt with a double ring, and fell just to the middle of the knee. Her legs, of that same matte tan, were bare. She wore dull gold open sandals with set-back heels, and the touch of coral red on the toenails matched her lips.
"Miss Blaise . . ." Tarrant moved down the steps, extending his hand. "I'm Tarrant. And may I introduce my colleague, John Fraser."
Her hand was cool, and he felt the play of wiry sinews in the long fingers. She turned a little to greet Fraser, and Tarrant saw her eyes strip the man of his obtuseness, label him "not-to-be-underestimated," and file him away in her mind.
"Forgive us for calling so late, Miss Blaise." Tarrant let no more than a hint of apology color his words. "Are we disturbing you?"
"Not very much. I'm interested to see you." The directness of the answer disposed of formality. "But there's something I'd like to get finished. It will only take three or four minutesЧplease come in."
She turned back into the room, and they followed. Tarrant had been in a lapidary's workshop before, but had never seen one as tidy as this. There were three separate benches, each with a tall stool. One bench held a bed of three horizontal wheels connected to a motor at the end. The lead wheel was some distance from the other two, and behind it stood a jar of carborundum. There was a can of finest emery flour behind the wooden wheel, and a small jar of putty powder behind the felt wheel.
On the second bench stood a small, watchmaker's lathe fitted with a slitting-sawЧa four-inch vertical disc of phosphor-bronze, its edge impregnated with diamond dust.
Modesty Blaise seated herself at the third bench, and gestured for the men to take the other two stools. She picked up a dopstick with a sapphire cemented on its broad head. At a long glance, Tarrant estimated the gem at forty carats. It had been cut en cabochon, and now she was working on it with a point carver. She switched on, and the running spindle began to turn.
Her face grew absorbed. Holding the dopstick in two hands, the butts of her palms resting on the angle plate, she slid the gem toward the cutting bit.
Tarrant looked about him. A large wall safe stood open. Several drawers of various sizes had been taken from a rack in the safe and lay on the bench at his elbow. One drawer was filled with a dozen or more gems in the roughЧdiamonds and rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Another held smaller gems, cut, faceted and polished.
Then, in a larger drawer, he saw the carved semiprecious stones, and caught his breath. There were tiny jars and bottles carved from jade and agate, a satanic head in gold sheen obsidian, and a rose in pink alabaster. He saw an eight-armed goddess in white chalcedony, and a huge flat oval of intricately chased jet.
For three minutes there was no sound in the room except for the whine of the motor. Fraser, his mask forgotten, watched intently.
Modesty Blaise switched off the motor and stood up. She screwed a jeweler's glass into one eye and studied the sapphire for ten seconds, then lifted her head, allowing the glass to drop into her hand.
"May I see it, please?" Tarrant asked with a hint of genuine diffidence.
"Of course. There's still some polishing to be done." She passed him the glass and the dopstick.
The head of a girl was cameo-sculpted on the sapphire in semiprofile, long hair drawn back, shoulders bare. Incredibly, the tiny face was alive. Tarrant tried to see how it had been achieved by those simple outlines and hollows, but it was beyond analysis. In silence he passed the dopstick and glass to Fraser, then looked at Modesty Blaise.
"This is your hobby, carving gemstones?" he asked.
"Yes." She met his eyes. "I don't handle them professionally any more." Her face was suddenly illumined by a surge of silent laughter. Here was the smile he had wanted to see. It was rich with delight, completely without restraint, and holding a gamine touch of mischief. Tarrant found himself grinning back at her.
"Not professionally," he said, and inclined his head in agreement. "We know you're retired, Miss Blaise. And naturally you need a hobby to occupy you."
Her smile had gone now, leaving only a memory of it in the eyes. With Tarrant's last words the memory vanished and she looked at him thoughtfully.
"Of course." Her voice was neutral. "Now, what will you drink?"
They followed her into the big room, and she moved to a small bar, jutting from an alcove, which held shelves of bottles and glasses.
"Please sit down. Sir Gerald?"
"A small brandy, please."
"And you, Mr. Fraser?"
"OhЧer . . ." Fraser drew a finger down his nose. "A large one, please," he said with nervous bravado, then shrank back into his chair. Fumbling busily, he took two folders from his briefcase and rested them on his lap.
Tarrant watched with approval the economy of movement she brought to the business of fixing the drinks. The brandies were placed on a small table between the two men. She poured a glass of red wine for herself, a vin ordinaire he noticed, then settled at one end of the chesterfield and drew her feet up.
"It's interesting to meet you, Sir Gerald," she said, lifting the glass slightly in acknowledgment. "I used to have a dossier on you before I retired."
"Oh, I'm a dull old stick, Miss Blaise." He sipped the brandy, and felt the Midas touch that turned the throat to gold. "You have a much more fascinating biography."
"How much do you know of it?"
"Ah. Fraser would be terribly upset if I claimed that we knew anything. Most of it is a series of guesses and deductions."
"May I hear them?"
"Of course."
Tarrant nodded to Fraser, who opened a folder and frowned at the typescript within.
"WellЧerЧbriefly, Miss Blaise," he said uneasily, "we first have you on record at about the age of seventeen. We believe you came from a DP camp in the Middle East, and there was no way to check your exact age."
"I can't help you there, Fraser," she said gravely. "I've never been able to check it myself."
"I see. Well, to summarize, you were a stateless person, and at this approximate age of seventeen we have you working in a small gambling establishment in Tangier. It was controlled by the Louche groupЧHenri Louche being a man who headed a small criminal organization. On his death at the hands of rivals one year later, you took control and there followed a remarkable expansion."
Fraser looked up from the dossier owlishly.
"I am not," he said, "at this stage differentiating between items of fact and items of supposition, you understand?"
"That's very wise, Mr. Fraser." She rose, picked up a silver cigarette box and offered it to Fraser. The cigarettes were Perfecto Finos. When he declined, she took one herself and set a humidor of cigars at Tarrant's elbow.
"I wasn't expecting you," she said. "I'm afraid there's only a choice of Burma cheroots and Petit Coronas."