"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 12 - Dead man's handle" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)

"I shall hypnotise her into so doing," announced Collier. "I have these incredible powers, you seeЧ"
Dinah sucked in her breath sharply and gave a shudder. Her husband broke off and gently took her hand. "Hey, did I say something, darling?" Modesty paused in the act of lifting eggs from the pan with a slice, head turned, concerned.
Dinah said, "No ... no, I don't know what it was. Somebody just walked over my grave, I guess. Ugh! Jumped on it, by the size of the shiver. Don't worry, I'm fine now."
Danny saw Modesty and Collier exchange a worried look. He was aware that Professor Stephen Collier, a statistician by profession, had a considerable reputation as an investigator of psychic phenomena; also that his wife, Dinah, had some curious abilities in that field. She was a highly skilled diviner, and in the past had been employed by industrial companies to locate water, metals, and the run of underground gas-pipes and electrical conduits. Before her marriage she had been saved by Modesty and Willie from vicious men who had kidnapped her to aid their search for an immense treasure.
Danny Chavasse also knew that it was Dinah who had located him in the Limbo slave camp, using a map, a small brass pendulum, and his own very special Breguet gold watch as a contact. He wondered if, in the last few seconds, some word or thought had triggered a random psychic reaction in the girl. Once he had been a sceptic about such phenomena. Now, though by no means credulous in a broad sense, he quite simply believed that without Dinah's extra-sensory faculty he would have been long dead. Modesty had told him that Dinah would have wished her psychic faculties away if she could, for she found any exercise of them mentally punishing, and resented the capricious nature of her gift.
Dinah said abruptly, "Don't snow me, ModestyЧis Willie okay? I mean, is he maybe caught up in some dangerous caper?"
Modesty brought Danny his breakfast and said, "When he rang last night he told me somebody had tried to kill him and Molly Chen. He doesn't know who or why. I wouldn't have told you, but you asked. He's quite all right though, and Molly too."
Collier rested his head in his hands and said in a taut, savage voice, "God, how I hate these shits who kill people at the drop of a hatЧnot because they're threatened in any way but simply for money, power, general greed, simple sadismЧ" He broke off and lifted his head to glare at Danny. "Do you know what two bastards of that ilk did to Dinah in Tenazabal, not long before she located you in that slave plantation?"
Dinah put an arm round him and said, "Yes, of course Danny knows. Please don't get worked up. It's all past now."
"Having someone try to kill you isn't that long past for Willie and his Chinese girl. And what aboutЧ" He stopped suddenly, relaxing a little. "Hey, was that graveyard shiver you had a reaction to what happened to Willie yesterday? A touch of retrocognition?"
"Could be, Steve, but I just can't tell. You know that." She turned her head in Modesty's direction. "What happened to whoever made the attempt, honey?"
Modesty said, "There were two or probably more men in a boat, and one came ashore on a quiet stretch of beach to do the killing with a gun. Willie found an answer and the man won't be doing it again. The others made off."
Collier said carefully, "Do I understand that the shit with the gun is now a dead shit?"
"Yes."
Collier exhaled loudly. "Well, that helps to ease my distress by a notch or two," he said with satisfaction. "The Garvэn boy has a most amiable nature, but he tends to be rather terse with people who attempt harm towards his ladies. I may well buy him a small gin and tonic on his return. Now what's this Molly Chen story, please?"
"There's not a lot to it," said Modesty. "Soon after I first met Willie I gave him a trial run on a job in Hong Kong. It was to do with Molly Chen's grandfather, who was something of an entrepreneur there. Willie ran into some nasty snags, but managed to sort them out. That was ... let me see, yes, nine years ago. Then last year Willie's circus was doing a Far East tourЧ"
Danny Chavasse looked up from his plate and said, "Excuse me, did you say circus?"
"Yes, didn't you know? Willie bought a half share in a travelling circus soon after we retired. It's mainly run by his partner, Georgi Gogol, but Willie usually spends a few weeks with it every year, sometimes here if it's touring Britain, sometimes abroad. I've done a few odd jobs there myself on occasion. It's truly fascinating."
Dinah said, "I once spent a whole day at the circus with Willie. It's a marvellous place for smells, Danny."
"Let us have no reminiscences concerning the mucking out of the elephants' washroom, please," said Collier. "I'm waiting to hear about W. Garvin Esq. and Molly Chen, and if there are any further interruptions I shall clear the court."
"Willie joined the circus for a while in Hong Kong," said Modesty, "and looked up Molly Chen. Her grandfather had died a few years ago. We don't know what happened to his money, but Molly didn't get it. She married, but her husband was killed in an accident just before Willie looked her up, and she was having a pretty thin time. She wanted to get out of Hong Kong, so Willie fixed her up with a job in the circus. It's doing a season in England just now, and Molly was due for a holiday, but it wouldn't have been much fun on her own, so Willie took her to Malta for a break."
Dinah said, "Is that the girl Willie was throwing knives at when you took me to the show near Guildford? You mentioned she was Chinese."
"That was Molly. She sells programmes, mends costumes, and does any job that comes to hand, but if Willie decides to do an act, then she plays target for him. He tells me she loves the life and has a burning ambition to become a clown."
Collier patted his wife's arm. "Now there's an example for you. If we got you a big red nose and some baggy pantsЧ" He broke off sharply. "No, wait! That's not what I was going to say. What was I going to say? Ah, yes. Before that woman with the frying pan distracted me I was going to say that her rendition of the Molly Chen story is typical of the Blaise method of narration. She has a unique capacity for killing any story stone dead. I quote Ч 'first met Willie' dee-dah dee-dah, 'job in Hong Kong' dee-dah dee-dah, 'ran into some nasty snags' dee-dah dee-dah, 'managed to sort them out' dee-dah dee-dah."
Collier shook his head in a gesture of despair. "How does she do it? How does she bring the art of the anecdote to such abysmal depths? The questions are rhetorical, Danny boy, go on with your breakfast. What I want to know as I sit here starving is, what job was he supposed to do? What snags did he encounter? How did he sort them out? And how and why and when and where did they first meet under what conditions and what happened?"
Modesty said, "Mind the plate, Dinah, it's hot." She set Dinah's breakfast in front of her.
"Thanks, honey. Smells great. Would you feel utterly betrayed if I endorsed what Steve just said? You tell a lousy story."
Modesty laughed. "I know. Just let me see to his breakfast and I'll try again." The phone on the wall rang, and she veered away from the cooker to answer it. Collier began to butter some toast for his wife. Danny Chavasse poured more coffee for her. On the phone, Modesty said, "Yes, at Kingsbrook. I can be there in fifteen minutes." She was jotting on a pad beside the phone. "Pick up at Stansted and deliver to North Thursby. Yes, I'll look it up. You'll arrange for reception? Thank you. Goodbye."
She put down the phone and tore the sheet from the pad. "I'm so sorry, but I have to dash."
"Dash?" Collier echoed. "Dash? What about my breakfast?"
"I have to fly a transplant kidney up to an airfield near Hull. Would you mind taking over, Dinah? I'll be back this afternoon."
"Sure. You take care now."
"I will. Steve, get the car out for me, will you please? Keys on the rack there."
"Yours to command, my lovely." Collier went out of the back door as Modesty left the kitchen by way of the hall.
Danny Chavasse said, "For one crazy moment I thought I heard Modesty say she was going to fly a kidney to somewhere."
Dinah nodded. "That's right. She's one of the St. John Air Wing volunteers, and she's on call this week. They make emergency flights to take medical stuff from A to B when it's needed fast, like some rare blood group, or serum, or transplant organ. That must have been her co-ordinator on the phone."
"These are all pilots who have their own aircraft, like Modesty?"
"Yes, that's how it works. She brought her Piper Comanche down here to the airfield at Kingsbrook last week."
He watched Dinah pick up the last morsels of her eggs and bacon as deftly as if she had been sighted. "Does it happen often?" he asked. "I mean, being called out like this."
"Modesty's only been called out once before, and that was when she was down in the South of France. The scheme operates all over Europe, with kidney-matching centres linked by computer. This other time wasn't a kidney, though. She flew a patient from Nice to Stoke Mandeville for some emergency operation."
Collier returned to the kitchen. Dinah put on an apron and began to make breakfast for him, first sensing with a light touch of her slim fingers the utensils and food set out beside the cooker. Two minutes later Modesty came downstairs wearing slacks, sweater and headscarf, a jacket over her arm, a small overnight bag in one hand.
Dinah said, "If you want company, honey, you can borrow Steve. He'll complain all the way there and back, but you're used to that."
Danny said, "No, I'll go along."
Modesty shook her head. "We fly with a co-pilot, so I'll be picking one up at Stansted. Please all go riding this morning, as planned, or do whatever you'd like to do. There's all sorts available. Oh, and don't forget Dinah wants to go shopping in Marlborough some time today." She touched the blind girl's arm. "I expect Steve will try to wriggle out of it, but Danny's a dream-boat to go shopping with. Quite inspiring. Goodbye all, and I'm sorry to be an absentee hostess."
At the door, Collier halted her for a moment to kiss her cheek. "Safe trip, darling," he said quietly, and went out with her to the car.
Dinah gave a little sigh and said, "We're always worrying about that girl."
Danny watched, fascinated, as she neatly turned over some rashers of bacon then listened with head cocked and nostrils flared a little as if judging the progress of the cooking by sound and smell. He said, "Modesty's a very competent pilot."
"Oh sure, but I didn't mean that exactly."
"Well. . . she survived long years of very real danger running The Network, which means she's highly competent in quite a few ways."
"Oh God, we know that, Danny. But she's always getting herself involved. She and Willie both. I mean, involved in situations where it's a surprise if you don't end up dead. She got involved in the Mus treasure thing because of me, and she got involved in Limbo because of you. That's how it goes on, so we're always wondering what's coming next."