Au Reservoir Read Online Free PDF

to drive back to London straight after lunch, after he had discussed his business with Benjy, that is. Royalty have such pressing schedules, you know. Much like your own, perhaps – but more so, naturally.’
    The group looked around in some embarrassment and the Wyses and the Bartletts showed distressing signs of wanting to be about their business. Even more unfortunately, Mapp somehow managed to get in the last word, calling, ‘Do be sure to invite Mr Coward to Mallards, Lucia, next time you write to him, so we can
all
meet him.’
    As she returned home Lucia felt that the proceedings had gone at least as well as could have been expected. While it was most unlikely that anyone believed her version of events, nobody could actually prove it to be untrue. How like Mapp to have succumbed to the temptation of dragging the Maharajah into any and every conversation rather than probing Lucia’s story more deeply.
    ‘So jealous, poor woman,’ she thought as she took off her hat and gloves and put them on the hall table. ‘How sad.’ She was still shaking her head sorrowfully as Grosvenor bobbed a curtsey and said, ‘If you please, mum, Miss Coles is waiting for you in the living room. She seems rather upset.’
    ‘Thank you, Grosvenor,’ Lucia said and then, sweeping into the living room, ‘Irene, dear, what’s amiss? This is very early to be calling.’
    Irene Coles, generally known as Quaint Irene, staunch in her devotion to Lucia, was standing in the middle of the room looking very distressed and holding a newspaper, which appeared to be of a type commonly bought by the lower orders.

Chapter 3
    ‘A ngel!’ cried Quaint Irene, who was indeed clearly very upset. ‘How simply septic for you!’
    ‘Irene, dear,’ said Lucia calmly, as she put down her basket, ‘do tell me what on earth you are talking about.’
    ‘So you haven’t heard. I’m so glad. I was worried that somebody would have ambushed you with this while you were shopping.’
    She thrust ‘this’ at Lucia, ‘this’ of course being the
Daily Mirror
.
    Lucia gazed at the newspaper in blank disbelief. As Irene watched her helplessly, it was almost as though for a moment Lucia’s mask had slipped, and she found herself looking at an old woman. But no, surely that was just a passing fancy. Lucia looked up, once more perfectly composed, and put the paper down as though she had been reading nothing more disturbing than the weather forecast.
    ‘Clearly there must be some perfectly innocent explanation,’ she said, but in a voice which trembled slightly. ‘I will telephone Olga at once and find out just what has been going on.’
    She was hoping that Irene would take the hint and depart but she stayed in the living room, gazing wretchedly at Lucia with a look of pure anguish on her face. Lucia left the room and went down the hall to the little telephone room, from where she attempted to call Olga’s flat, but without success.
    The couple of minutes which this entailed had nonetheless been all that she needed to regain fully her sangfroid.
    ‘Olga’s phone must be out of order,’ she informed Irene. ‘What a bore!’
    ‘What will you do, then?’ asked Irene.
    ‘As it happens, I was already intending to go up to town today. I will simply drop in on Olga and talk to her in person instead. Would you be so kind as to ring the bell? I must just have a look at my
Bradshaw
.’
    So it was that when Foljambe answered her mistress’s summons she found her studying exactly the same page of railway timetables that Olga had perused so recently in her flat in London.
    ‘I can just catch the 11.04 if I hurry,’ said Lucia to nobody in particular. ‘Ah, Foljambe, I must go up to London this morning. Will you please pack me an overnight bag quickly – just small, nothing formal – and ask Cadman to bring the Rolls round to run me to the station?’
    ‘Yes, mum,’ said Foljambe with a bob, and scurried from the room.
    A few minutes later, Cadman held