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Агата Кристи
Lombard smiled.
‘I brought it because I expected to run into a spot of trouble.’
Blore said suspiciously:
‘You didn’t tell us that last night.’
Lombard shook his head.
‘You were holding out on us?’ Blore persisted.
‘In a way, yes,’ said Lombard.
‘Well, come on, out with it.’
Lombard said slowly:
‘I allowed you all to think that I was asked here in the same way as most of the others. That’s not quite true. As a matter of fact I was approached by a little man—Morris his name was. He offered me a hundred guineas to come down here and keep my eyes open—said I’d got a reputation for being a good man in a tight place.’
‘Well?’ Blore prompted impatiently.
Lombard said with a grin:
‘That’s all.’
Dr Armstrong said:
‘But surely he told you more than that?’
‘Oh no, he didn’t. Just shut up like a clam. I could take it or leave it—those were his words. I was hard up. I took it.’
Blore looked unconvinced. He said:
‘Why didn’t you tell us all this last night?’
‘My dear man—’ Lombard shrugged eloquent shoulders. ‘How was I to know that last night wasn’t exactly the eventuality I was here to cope with? I lay low and told a noncommittal story.’
Dr Armstrong said shrewdly:
‘But now—you think differently?’
Lombard’s face changed. It darkened and hardened. He said: ‘Yes. I believe now that I’m in the same boat as the rest of you. That hundred guineas was just Mr Owen’s little bit of cheese to get me into the trap along with the rest of you.’
He said slowly:
Downstairs the gong pealed a solemn call to lunch.
II
Rogers was standing by the dining-room door. As the three men descended the stairs he moved a step or two forward. He said in a low anxious voice:
‘I hope lunch will be satisfactory. There is cold ham and cold tongue, and I’ve boiled some potatoes. And there’s cheese and biscuits, and some tinned fruits.’
Lombard said:
‘Sounds all right. Stores are holding out, then?’
‘There is plenty of food, sir—of a tinned variety. The larder is very well stocked. A necessity, that, I should say, sir, on an island where one may be cut off from the mainland for a considerable period.’
Lombard nodded.
Rogers murmured as he followed the three men into the dining-room:
‘It worries me that Fred Narracott hasn’t been over today. It’s peculiarly unfortunate, as you might say.’
‘Yes,’ said Lombard, ‘peculiarly unfortunate describes it very well.’
Miss Brent came into the room. She had just dropped a ball of wool and was carefully rewinding the end of it.
As she took her seat at the table she remarked:
‘The weather is changing. The wind is quite strong and there are white horses on the sea.’
Mr Justice Wargrave came in. He walked with a slow measured tread. He darted quick looks from under his bushy eyebrows at the other occupants of the dining-room. He said:
‘You have had an active morning.’
There was a faint malicious pleasure in his voice.
