Au Reservoir Read Online Free PDF Page B

the door open as Lucia got into the car, and so began the first leg of what Georgie and Olga would later refer to privately as the Great Southern Railway Handicap.
    At about one o’clock, Georgie and Olga arrived at Mallards having caught the 10.34 from Waterloo, and expressed great vexation at having missed Lucia. Though pressed by Grosvenor and Foljambe to stay to lunch, they instead asked Cadman to run them straight back to the station so they could be sure of catching Lucia at Olga’s flat in London. Waving serenely to one or two goggling Tillingites from the back of the Rolls, they caught the 2.04 to Waterloo, asking Cadman to drive on to the post office after he dropped them, and despatch a telegram addressed to Lucia at Olga’s London address explaining what had happened and asking her to wait for them.
    At about 1.30 Lucia arrived at Olga’s flat and was greeted with great surprise by Céline, who exclaimed that her mistress and Mr Pillson had left town earlier that morning to go and stay with Mrs Pillson at Mallards. Lucia, with some irritation, asked to use the telephone only to be informed that the instrument was out of order, and that Céline was even now awaiting an engineer who was due to come and repair it.
    Lucia then decided, exactly as Olga had predicted she would, that there was nothing for it but to return to Tilling, and she duly asked Céline to go out into the street to procure a taxi for her. While she waited, she jotted down the text of a telegram on a piece of Olga’s notepaper from her writing desk and, as she got into the taxi, gave it to Céline together with half a crown and enjoined her to send it without delay. Céline, remembering her mistress’s instructions, checked her watch when she reached the post office and, seeing that it was safe to do so, sent the missive, which of course explained what had happened and asked Georgie and Olga to wait for Lucia in Tilling.
    Lucia managed to catch the 2.34 from Waterloo, and arrived back at Mallards shortly after five o’clock, to find her telegram to Georgie lying unopened on the hall table. As she sat in her living room wondering rather sourly what on earth she should do now, there was a knock at the door and shortly afterwards Foljambe came into the room with a further telegram on a salver. Slitting it open, Lucia read, ‘All too tiresome. You stay Tilling. We join you tomorrow. Georgie.’
    ‘No reply, Foljambe,’ she said coolly.
    She waited for Foljambe to dismiss the postman and then called her back into the room.
    ‘What time did Mr Georgie get here, Foljambe?’ she enquired.
    ‘About lunchtime if you please, mum,’ came the answer but then, perhaps feeling that a fuller explanation was required. Foljambe went on in a rush, ‘Oh, madam, Mr Georgie was
so
upset to miss you. He and Miss Bracely wouldn’t even stay for lunch. They got Cadman to take them straight back to the station and they asked him to send you a telegram asking you to wait for them in London. I hope you won’t think it was his fault – he went straight to the post office from the station.’
    ‘It’s nobody’s fault, Foljambe,’ Lucia decided magnanimously, ‘except perhaps Miss Bracely’s telephone’s fault for being out of order.
    Please tell Cadman not to worry himself.’
    ‘Oh, thank you, mum,’ said Foljambe, greatly relieved.
    ‘Please tell Grosvenor that I will be on my own for dinner,’ said her mistress, ‘but that Mr Georgie and Miss Bracely will be arriving tomorrow.’
    By this time, of course, the
Daily Mirror
photograph has been seen by all of Tilling, not least by Elizabeth Mapp-Flint and her husband.
    ‘Good God!’ ejaculated the Major, totally stupefied. ‘Who’d have thought it of old Pillson? Didn’t know he had it in him.’ He shook his head in disbelief, put it down on the arm of his chair, and then picked it up and looked at it all over again.
    ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s all completely innocent,’ said his wife