Зло под солнцем / Evil Under the Sun
Шрифт:
Father, too, had seemed pleased to see Miss Darnley. Funny – he’d looked quite different, all of a sudden. He’d looked – he’d looked – Linda puzzled it out – why, young, that was it! He’d laughed – a queer boyish laugh. Now Linda came to think of it, she’d very seldom heard him laugh. She felt puzzled. It was as though she’d got a glimpse of quite a different person.
She thought: “I wonder what Father was like when he was my age…”
But that was too difficult. She gave it up.
An idea flashed across her mind. What fun it would have been if they’d come here and found Miss Darnley here – just she and Father. A vista opened out just for a minute. Father, boyish and laughing. Miss Darnley, herself – and all the fun one could have on the island – bathing – caves – The blackness shut down again.
Arlena. One couldn’t enjoy oneself with Arlena about. Why not? Well, she, Linda, couldn’t, anyway. You couldn’t be happy when there was a person there you – hated. Yes, hated. She hated Arlena.
Very slowly that black burning wave of hatred rose up again. Linda’s face went very white. Her lips parted a little. The pupils of her eyes contracted. And her fingers stiffened and clenched themselves…
Kenneth Marshall tapped on his wife’s door. When her voice answered, he opened the door and went in. Arlena was just putting the finishing touches on her toilet. She was dressed in glittering green and looked a little like a mermaid. She was standing in front of the glass applying mascara to her eyelashes.
She said: “Oh, it’s you. Ken.”
“Yes. I wondered if you were ready.”
“Just a minute.”
Kenneth Marshall strolled to the window. He looked out on the sea. His face, as usual, displayed no emotion of any kind. It was pleasant and ordinary.
Turning around, he said: “Arlena?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve met Redfern before, I gather?”
Arlena said easily: “Oh, yes, darling. At a cocktail party somewhere. I thought he was rather a pet.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.