Читать «Рождество Эркюля Пуаро (Hercule Poirot"s Christmas)» онлайн - страница 4

She registered the facts without much interest or emotion. She came from a country where men looked at women as a matter of course and did not disguise the fact unduly. She wondered if he was an Englishman and decided that he was not.

‘He is too alive, too real, to be English,’ Pilar decided. ‘And yet he is fair. He may be perhaps Americano.’ He was, she thought, rather like the actors she had seen in Wild West films.

An attendant pushed his way along the corridor.

‘First lunch, please. First lunch. Take your seats for first lunch.’

The seven occupants of Pilar’s carriage all held tickets for the first lunch. They rose in a body and the carriage was suddenly deserted and peaceful.

Pilar quickly pulled up the window which had been let down a couple of inches at the top by a militant-looking, grey-haired lady in the opposite corner. Then she sprawled comfortably back on her seat and peered out of the window at the northern suburbs of London. She did not turn her head at the sound of the door sliding back. It was the man from the corridor, and Pilar knew, of course, that he had entered the carriage on purpose to talk to her.

She continued to look pensively out of the window.

Stephen Farr said: ‘Would you like the window down at all?’

Pilar replied demurely: ‘On the contrary. I have just shut it.’ She spoke English perfectly, but with a slight accent.

During the pause that ensued, Stephen thought: ‘A delicious voice. It has the sun in it… It is warm like a summer night…’

Pilar thought: ‘I like his voice. It is big and strong. He is attractive – yes, he is attractive.’

Stephen said: ‘The train is very full.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed. The people go away from London, I suppose, because it is so black there.’

Pilar had not been brought up to believe that it was a crime to talk to strange men in trains. She could take care of herself as well as any girl, but she had no rigid taboos.

If Stephen had been brought up in England he might have felt ill at ease at entering into conversation with a young girl. But Stephen was a friendly soul who found it perfectly natural to talk to anyone if he felt like it.

He smiled without any self-consciousness and said: ‘London’s rather a terrible place, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes. I do not like it at all.’

‘No more do I.’

Pilar said: ‘You are not English, no?’

‘I’m British, but I come from South Africa.’

‘Oh, I see, that explains it.’

‘Have you just come from abroad?’

Pilar nodded. ‘I come from Spain.’

Stephen was interested. ‘From Spain, do you? You’re Spanish, then?’

‘I am half-Spanish. My mother was English. That is why I talk English so well.’

‘What about this war business?’ asked Stephen. ‘It is very terrible, yes – very sad. There has been damage done, quite a lot – yes.’

‘Which side are you on?’

Pilar’s politics seemed to be rather vague. In the village where she came from, she explained, nobody had paid very much attention to the war. ‘It has not been near us, you understand. The Mayor, he is, of course, an officer of the Government, so he is for the Government, and the priest is for General Franco – but most of the people are busy with the vines and the land, they have not time to go into these questions.’