Suspicious Circumstances Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ll keep my secret to the grave. But, Nicholas, what do you think?’
    It would have been so much better if I hadn’t been all screwed up with bits of the old ‘red-head’ sensation and longings for Monique and a whole raft of ‘boring’ thoughts. The only thing to do at the moment seemed to be to retreat behind my iciest dignity.
    ‘No comment,’ I said.
    ‘Oh, Nicholas.’ She pouted. ‘How can you be so dreary? Think of all the gloriously appalling things that might have happened. Think…’
    Luckily, the telephone rang then. As I made a hurried escape out into the garden, with dozens of emotions flapping around like butterflies inside me, I could hear her fruity telephone sing-song again.
    ‘Hello … hello … you are connected with the residence of Miss Anny Rood…’

4
    As I walked through the bougainvillea and the cactuses and the succulents and the palm trees towards the free-form swimming-pool, I saw Uncle Hans, in his inevitable blue serge business suit, sitting under a beach umbrella, playing chess against himself.
    He happened to look up and noticed me. Uncle Hans, being Swiss, believed that Europeans went on being European regardless of what happened to them. Since in Europe you kiss male relatives, I kissed him on an area of baby pink skin under the genius mop of white hair.
    Uncle Hans wasn’t really my uncle; he was Mother's, the only relative to have emerged from the Rumanian-Bulgarian—Swiss mists of her past. He’d been the greatest yodeler of his day and had taken Mother into his act when she was down and out. But, reasonably enough, yodeling was a thing which eventually made audiences very angry, so poor Uncle Hans’ career came to an end and Mother, with all her loyalties going full blast, had brought him with her when she first came to conquer Hollywood. Ever since, he’d spent his time writing the longest and most definitive book on the History of Yodeling and playing chess against himself, which left him rather absent-minded in all other walks of life.
    He didn’t have to be absent-minded; he was in fact the brightest of us all when he wanted to be, but he had to be interested before the great brain swung into operation and usually he just wasn’t interested.
    ‘Hello, Uncle Hans,’ I said.
    He smiled his sweet, elsewhere smile. ‘Hello, Nickie, so you are back.’
    Part of me had decided to rise above Delight Schmidt. But another — rash — part of me was desperately eager to prove she’d been lying. I thought about pumping Uncle Hans but decided it would be a waste of time. Better to wait for Pam.
    Pam Thornton, who had been imported a few years later than Uncle Hans, had been Mother’s greatest buddy in her yodeling days and had had a dog act called Pam and Her Pals or Pam et Ses Copains or Pam und Ihre Freunde according to the country. But Pam was also a British Colonel’s Daughter and British Colonels’ Daughters, however emancipated, never quite get over the Playing The Game bit which is drummed into them on the hockey-fields of Schools For Young Ladies in Sussex. If there was anything dreadful to hide, she would do her best to keep it from me, but her best just wouldn’t be good enough because we loved each other and deep down inside she would know that lying to me wasn’t Playing The Game. I was sure of that.
    I stood watching Uncle Hans. He had completely lost interest in me. Rather sadly he took a red bishop with a black knight. The pool was dazzlingly blue in the morning sunshine; the palmettos creaked in a slight breeze; a scarlet hibiscus flopped on to the cement at my feet. Glorious Technicolor, the whole thing. I wished I didn’t feel so peculiar. I longed to be back with Monique boiling an egg for the coffee.
    And then, to my intense relief, Pam appeared hurrying through the cactuses. Tray, the terrible dog which she’d trained to keep her hand in, was struggling behind her, dragging a large package down the flagstone steps by a string in his