Above Suspicion Read Online Free PDF Page B

the wet figures as they balanced to dive gave a moment’s illusion of silver statues.
    “I’ve found the difference between twenty and thirty,” said Richard. “At twenty you never think of rheumatics or a chill in the bladder.”
    They guided the canoe back to the boathouse. They stood together on the landing-place in silence, looking at the river and the white mist rising.
    They walked slowly home. At the gate they met Anni.
    “Guten Abend, gnädige Frau, Herr Professor.” She was a tall girl, with a pleasant, open face, and fair hair braided round her head.
    “Good evening, Anni. Did you see your friends all right?”
    Anni nodded. Her arms were full of small parcels. “We had cake, and tea, and then we sang. It was very gemütlich.” She looked down at the parcels. “They gave me these presents,” she added. She spoke the careful English which Frances had taught her. “I’ve had so much pleasure.”
    “I’m glad, Anni. You should go to bed soon: you have a long journey tomorrow.”
    Anni nodded again. “I wish you good night, gnädige Frau , Herr Professor. Angenehme Ruh’.”
    They walked round the garden after she had left them.
    “It’s funny, Richard. I really am tired and there is a nice large bed waiting for me upstairs and yet I keep staying out here looking at the stars.”
    “I hate to be unromantic, but I do think it is time we got some sleep. Tomorrow’s a bad day. It always is: you have a genius for finding last-minute things to do.” Frances smiled, and felt Richard’s arm round her waist guide her to the house. On the steps he stopped to kiss her.
    “That’s to break the enchantment,” he said. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were the way Frances loved them most.

4
BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY
    There was always a feeling of excitement after the unpleasantness of a Channel crossing, while the train waited patiently on the Dieppe siding, for the last passengers. They emerged, in straggling groups, from the customs and passport sheds. Frances, already comfortably settled in her corner, watched them with interest. She glanced at Richard opposite her, leaning back with his eyes closed. He was a bad sailor, but he managed things like customs officials very well indeed. Thank heaven for Richard, she thought, watching other wives followed by harassed husbands whose tempers didn’t improve under commiserating looks from unhurried bachelors. It was the stage in the journey when most people began to wonder if it all wasn’t more trouble than it was worth.
    The last nervous lady was helped into the train. The confusion along the corridors was subsiding. They were moving, very slowly, very carefully. Two young men hadhalted at their compartment.
    “This will do,” said one, after hardly seeming to glance in their direction. They swung their rucksacks on to the rack and threw their Burberries after them. Undergraduates, thought Frances, as she looked at a magazine. Like Richard, they wore dark-grey pin-stripe flannel suits, brown suede shoes well worn, collars which pointed carelessly, and the hieroglyphic tie of a college society.
    The train travelled gently along the street, like a glorified tramcar. The children with thin legs and cropped hair and faded blue overalls halted in their games to watch the engine. Their older sisters, leaning on their elbows at the tall narrow windows, looked critically at the people travelling to Paris. The women, standing in the doorways or in front of the small shops, hardly bothered to interrupt their gossip. It was only a trainload, and a full one too. All the better for their men who worked on the piers: the arriving tourist tipped well. The old men, who sat reading the cafe newspapers at the marble-topped tables, looked peacefully bored. One of them pulled out a watch, looked at it, looked at the train, and shook his head. Frances smiled to herself. Things had been different when he worked in the sheds, no doubt.
    She discarded her magazines. It was