"Mary Stewart - Wildfire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

pressed the bell. "In a way, we came here because of Fergus. He was born here. Not that he cares much
for auld lang syne and all that, but it seemed as good a place as any to come to."

I stared at her. I couldn't help it. "You're veryтАФconsiderate," 1 said. "Your employeesтАФ"

She looked at me. This time the famous smile was definitely the one from that very naughty show Yes,
My Darling. "Aren't I just? But FergusтАФoh, a dry sherry, isn't it? And another pink gin." She gave the order
and turned back to me. "D'you know, if I talked like this to anyone else in the hotel they'd freeze likeтАФlike
stuffed trout."

"Who else is in the hotel?"

"Well, let's see. . There's Colonel and Mrs. Cowdray-Simpson. They're dim, but rather sweet. They fish
all the time, day and night, and have never, to my certain knowledge, caught anything at all."

"I think I saw them come in. Elderly, with an empty creel?"

"That's them all right. Then, still talking of fish, there's Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan and Mr. Braine."

"Not Alastair Braine, by any odd chance?"
 "I believe that is his name." Her glance was speculative. "A friend of yours?"

"I've met him. He's in advertising."

"Well, he's with this Corrigan couple. And," added Marcia meditatively, "if ever I could find it in me to pity
a woman who's married to a man as good-looking as Hartley Corrigan,. I'd pity that one."

"Why?" I asked, amused. Marcia Maling's views on marriage, delivered personally, ought to be worth
listening to.

"Fish," she said, simply.

"Fish? Oh, I get it. You mean fish?"

"Exactly. He and Alastair Braine, they're just like the Cowdray-Simpsons. Morning, noon, and night. Fish.
And she does nothingтАФnothingтАФto fight it, though she's obviously having an utterly foul time, and has been
for weeks. She moons miserably about alone with her hands in her pockets."

I remembered the depressed-looking woman who had trudged upstairs in the wake of the
Cowdray-Simpsons. "I think I've seen her. She didn't look too happy, I agree. But I doubt," I said
thoughtfully, "if there's a woman living who could compete with fish, once they've really got hold of a man."

Marcia Maling wriggled her lovely body deeper into her chair, and said: "No?"

"All right," I said. "You, possibly. Or Rita Hayworth. But no lesser woman."

"But she doesn't even try!" said Marcia indignantly. "And heтАФoh well, who else?"

"I saw two womenтАФ" I began.