Death On The Nile - Christie Agatha. Страница 47

Ferguson strode up to her. Hercule Poirot, entering unobtrusively, took a seat a discreet distance away and appeared to be absorbed in a magazine.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Van Schuyler." Miss Van Schuyler aised her eyes for a bare second, dropped them again and murmured frigidly: "Er-good-afternoon." "Look here, Miss Van Schuyler, I want to talk to you about something pretty important. It's just this. I want to marry your niece." Miss Van Schuyler's ball of wool dropped on to the ground and ran wildly across the saloon.

She said in a venomous tone: "You must be out of your senses, young man." "Not at all. I'm determined to marry her. I've asked her to marry me!" Miss Van Schuyler surveyed him coldly, with the kind of speculative interest she might have accorded to an odd sort of beetle.

"Indeed? And I presume she sent you about your business." "She refused me." "Naturally." "Not 'naturally' at all. I'm going to go on asking her till she agrees." "I can assure you, sir, I shall take steps to see that my young cousin is not subjected to any such persecution," said Miss Van Schuyler in a biting tone." "What have you got against me?"

Miss Van Schuyler merely raised her eyebrows and gave a vehement tug to her wool, preparatory to regaining it and closing the interview.

"Come now," persisted Mr. Ferguson. "What have you got against me?"

"I should think that was quite obvious, Mr.--er-I don't know your name." "Ferguson."

"Mr. Ferguson." Miss Van Schuyler uttered the name with definite distaste.

"Any such idea is quite out of the question."

"You mean," said Ferguson, "that I'm not good enough for her?" "I should think that would have been obvious to you." "In what way am I not good enough?" Miss Van Schuyler again did not answer.

"I've got two legs two arms, good health and quite reasonable brains. What's wrong with that?"

"There is such a thing as social position, Mr. Ferguson."

"Social position is bunk!"

The door swung open and Cornelia came in. She stopped dead on seeing her redoubtable Cousin Marie in conversation with her would-be suitor.

The outrageous Mr. Ferguson turned his head, grinned broadly and called out:

"Come along, Cornelia. I'm asking for your hand in marriage in the best conventional manner."

"Cornelia," said Miss Van Schuyler, and her voice was truly awful in quality. "Have you encouraged this young man?"

"I-no, of course not-at least-not exactly-I mean-"

"What do you mean?"

"She hasn't encouraged me," said Mr. Ferguson helpfully. "I've done it all.

She hasn't actually pushed me in the face because she's got too kind a heart.

Cornelia, your aunt says I'm not good enough for you. That, of course, is true, but not in the way she means it. My moral nature certainly doesn't equal yours, but her point is that I'm hopelessly below you socially."

"That, I think, is equally obvious to Cornelia," said Miss Van Schuyler.

"Is it?" Mr. Ferguson looked at her searchingly. "Is that why you won't marry me?"

"No, it isn't." Cornelia flushed. "If-if I liked you, I'd marry you no matter who you were."

"But you don't like me?"

"I-I think you're just outrageous. The way you say things… The things you say… I-I've never met any one the least like you. I-"

Tears threatened to overcome her. She rushed from the room.

"On the whole," said Mr. Ferguson, "that's not too bad for a start." He leaned back in his chair, gazed at the ceiling, whistled, crossed his disreputable knees and remarked, "I'll be calling you Auntie yet."

Miss Van Schuyler trembled with rage.

"Leave this room at once, sir, or I'll ring for the steward."

"I've paid for my ticket," said Mr. Ferguson. "They can't possibly turn me out of the public lounge. But I'll humour you." He sang softly, "Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum." Rising, he sauntered nonchalantly to the door and passed out.

Choking with anger Miss Van Schuyler struggled to her feet. Poirot, discreetly emerging from retirement behind his magazine, sprang up and retrieved the ball of wool.

"Thank you, M. Poirot. If you would send Miss Bowers to meI feel quite upset-that insolent young man."

"Rather eccentric, I'm afraid," said Poirot. "Most of that family are. Spoilt, of course. Always inclined to tilt at windmills." He added carelessly: "You recognised him, I suppose?"

"Recognised him?"

"Calls himself Ferguson and won't use his title because of his advanced ideas." "His title?" Miss Van Schuyler's tone was sharp.

"Yes, that's young Lord Dawlish. Rolling in money, of course. But he became a communist when he was at Oxford."

Miss Van Schuyler, her face a battleground of contradictory emotions, said: "How long have you known this, M. Poirot?" Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

"There was a picture in one of these papers-I noticed the resemblance. Then I found a signet ring with a coat of arms on it. Oh, there's no doubt about it, I assure you.

He quite enjoyed reading the conflicting expressions that succeeded each other on Miss Van Schuyler's face. Finally, with a gracious inelincation of the head, she said:

"I am very much obliged to you, M. Poirot."

Poirot looked after her as she went out of the saloon and smiled.

Then he sat down and his face grew grave once more. He was following out a train of thought in hi mind. From time to time he nodded his head.

"Mais oui," he said at last. "It all fits in."

Chapter 25

Race found him still sitting there.

"Well, Poirot, what about it? Pennington's due in ten minutes. I'm leaving this in your hands."

Poirot rose quickly to his feet.

"First, get hold of young Fanthorp." "Fanthorp?" Race looked surprised.

"Yes. Bring him to my cabin."

Race nodded and went off. Poirot went along to his cabin. Race arrived with young Fanthorp a minute or two afterwards.

Poirot indicated chairs and offered cigarettes.

"Now, M. Fanthorp," he said. "To our business! I perceive that you wear the same tie that my friend Hastings wears."

Jim Fanthorp looked down at his neckwear with some bewilderment.

"It's an O.E. tie," he said.

"Exactly. You must understand that though I am a foreigner, I know something of the English point of view. I know, for instance, that there are 'things which are done' and things which are 'not done.'"

Jim Fanthorp grinned.

"We don't say that sort of thing much nowadays, sir."

"Perhaps not, but the custom, it still remains. The Old School Tie is the

Old School Tie and there are certain things (I know this from experience) that the

Old School Tie does not do! One of those things, M. Fanthorp, is to butt into a private conversation unasked when one does not know the people who are conducting it." Fanthorp stared.

Poirot went on:

"But the other day, M. Fanthorp, that is exactly what you did do. Certain persons were quietly transacting some private business in the observation saloon.

You strolled near them, obviously in order to overhear what it was that was in progress, and presently you actually turned round and congratulated a lady-Mrs.

Simon Doyleon the soundness of her business methods."

Jim Fanthorp's face got very red. Poirot swept on, not waiting for a comment.

"Now that, M. Fanthorp, was not at all the behaviour of one who wears a tie similar to that worn by my friend Hastings! Hastings is all delicacy, would die of shame before he did such a thing! Therefore, taking that action of yours in conjunction with the fact that you are a very young man to be able to afford an expensive holiday, that you are a member of a country solicitor's firm and therefore probably not extravagantly well off, and that you shdw no sign of recent illness such as might necessitate a prolonged visit abroad, I ask myself-and am now asking you